Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PETITION

Beam Trawling (South Coast)

Mr. Cordle: With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of this honourable House, I beg to present a petition on behalf of 41 fishermen of Mudeford and district and others.
The petition shows that there is grave concern over the conservation of British fishing grounds within the 12-mile limit and, indeed, where the six-mile limit applies. Except by special permits the petitioners wish to ban all 8-metre beam trawlers which cause serious damage to the sea bed.
They petition that six patrol vessels are totally inadequate to protect the whole of Britain's coast and propose that a system capable of enforcing existing and further regulations for essential conservation be introduced forthwith.
I warmly support this petition, which states:
Wherefore your petitioners pray that your honourable House do most urgently debate the conservation of Britain's fishing grounds and do give protection to the livelihood of Britain's inshore fishermen, and that your honourable House do approve to ban all beam trawling along the South Coast within Britain's territorial waters 12-mile limit, except by local trawl permits to meet local area needs and that your honourable House do enforce existing regulations for conservation by replacing the present proposed naval patrol system by a fast adequate number of vessels competent to enforce conservation in all areas under their control and supervision and do urge your honourable House to call for an immediate inquiry into these matters.
And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.

To lie upon the Table.

Oral Answers to Questions — WALES

School Transport

Mr. Ellis: asked the Secretary of State for Wales if he will seek to ascertain how many schemes reorganising secondary education in Wales introduced after the summer holidays have resulted in increases of school bus fares being met by parents; and if he will make a statement.

The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Peter Thomas): No, Sir. These are matters for the local education authority concerned.

Mr. Ellis: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that in my constituency, following the reorganisation of secondary education in the Wrexham area and the introduction of the new system of the sixth-form college, some parents are having to find an appreciable sum of money in addition to that which they have had to find to pay bus fares to Wrexham? Next year one parent in particular, who will then have three children at school in Wrexham, will be obliged to find an additional sum of £3 per week from her housekeeping money. Does not the Secretary of State think that this is unreasonable, that the three-mile limit arrangement should be reviewed and certainly that it is unreasonable to expect children to walk nearly three miles to school in all weathers unless parents are obliged to find the extra money?

Mr. Thomas: As the hon. Gentleman knows, the Education Act 1944 lays down the statutory responsibility of local education authorities for school transport and allows them the necessary discretionary powers to provide transport for those who live within the statutory walking distance. I have no power to intervene provided the education authorities are complying with the statutory requirements.

Sir A. Meyer: Will my right hon. and learned Friend tell us whether any thought is being given to the possible reduction of this statutory distance? Three miles seems a very long way.

Mr. Thomas: The whole question of school transport in England and Wales is being considered by a working party which has been set up by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science and myself. The terms of reference of the working party are to review the present arrangements including the existing law affecting the provision of school transport and to report on any changes which might be needed. The Welsh Joint Education Committee is represented.

European Community Firms

Mr. McBride: asked the Secretary of State for Wales what consultations he has had with representatives of Common Market firms who have indicated to him their intention to set up manufacturing prccesses in Wales.

Mr. Peter Thomas: Consultations with European firms are undertaken by officials of the Department of Trade and Industry, as well as by the Development Corporation for Wales. I shall participate when it is appropriate for me to do so.

Mr. McBride: What a confession of failure—that the Minister will "participate". How many German and Swiss firms are commencing business in Wales as a result of discussions they have had with the Development Corporation and with Welsh firms, bearing in mind that 80 per cent. of Welsh firms employ fewer than 100 people? How many jobs will materialise as a result of the discussions which have taken place? Will the European Economic Community rules apply in the inhibiting competition sense to the 18 applications made by Welsh firms under the Industry Act?

Mr. Thomas: The Development Corporation recently announced that 27 German and Swiss firms are considering manufacturing arrangements in Wales as a result of its promotions in South Germany and Switzerland this autumn. I visited Zurich in connection with the corporation's campaign. I think the hon. Gentleman will appreciate that this shows that the Development Corporation is doing very well.

School Building Programme (Monmouthshire)

Mr. Roy Hughes: asked the Secretary of State for Wales what representations he has received about the new school building programme in Monmouthshire; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Peter Thomas: My hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (Mr. John Stradling Thomas) and the hon. Members for Newport (Mr. Roy Hughes), Bedwellty (Mr. Kinnock) and Pontypool (Mr. Abse) have written to me recently about cost limits and their possible effects on the authority's major school building programme. If the authority can satisfy me that everything possible has been done to keep projects within the cost limits I am prepared to consider exceptionally any difficulties that may arise. These are complicated matters and I shall of course be replying to hon. Members in due course.

Mr. Hughes: Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman appreciate that the Government have another remarkable achievement to their credit in that they have created a shortage of building trade workers in an area of heavy unemployment and that ultimately the whole school building programme in Monmouthshire will be in jeopardy? Will he therefore, as a matter of urgency, look into the question of cost limits and also the question of training facilities in Monmouthshire, including the provision of a new training centre at Newport?

Mr. Peter Thomas: It is true that for various reasons there is a shortage of building workers. There is a greatly added demand for building at present. As regards training, colleges of further education in Monmouthshire and adjoining authorities offer an extensive range of courses for people employed in the building industry.

Mr. Kinnock: May I suggest to the right hon. and learned Gentleman that one way in which he can immediately accommodate Monmouthshire's demands and secure an increase in educational provision is by increasing his allocation of nursery schools from the four that he allowed Monmouthshire in response to its demand for 32?

Mr. Peter Thomas: I think the hon. Gentleman knows that there is a later Question on the Order Paper on precisely that subject.

Mr. George Thomas: Can the right hon. and learned Gentleman say how long it will take him to make a decision on the upper cost level, as it is this that is handicapping authorities in Monmouthshire?

Mr. Peter Thomas: The right hon. Gentleman will appreciate that the question of cost limits is not a matter entirely for me. Cost limits were increased by 13 per cent. in April 1971 and by a further 15 per cent. in April 1972. The matter is always under review.

Nursery Education

Sir A. Meyer: asked the Secretary of State for Wales how many nursery places will be made available by 1976 to children in Wales below five years of age under the proposals contained in the Government White Paper, Cmnd. 5174.

Mr. Peter Thomas: I propose to invite local education authorities early in the New Year to submit their bids for the nursery programme announced in the White Paper. The number of places to be programmed by 1976 will be decided after their proposals have been studied.

Sir A. Meyer: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that the far-reaching proposals—even if unfortunately not yet very detailed—which are outlined in the White Paper have given great satisfaction to the many people who have for a long time been pressing for an extension of nursery education?

Mr. Thomas: I agree with my hon. Friend. The response that I have had from people who are interested in this branch of the education service has been considerable. The White Paper announcement, particularly on nursery education, has been extremely well received.

Mr. Alec Jones: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman bear in mind that many areas such as Rhondda traditionally send their children to school at the age of three? What we do not want from the right hon. and learned Gentleman is any attempt to restrict Rhondda

from doing that in accordance with the White Paper.

Mr. Thomas: I think that over the last 2½ years we have had a very good record in the provision of service for children under five in Wales in particular under the urban aid programme. Local education authorities are now free to go ahead and provide nursery education from their own resources. This may result in the expansion of nursery provision before additional new buildings become available.

Bilingual Official Forms

Mr. Goronwy Roberts: asked the Secretary of State for Wales if he is satisfied with progress made in providing forms and explanatory material in the Welsh language by Government Departments in Wales in accordance with the principle of equal validity as recommended in the Hughes Parry Report and embodied in the Welsh Language Act 1967; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Peter Thomas: The number of Welsh or bilingual versions of official forms is now 351, compared with 246 in June 1970. Informative material in Welsh issued by Government Departments is also increasing steadily. I am satisfied that the Government's policy in this field is progressive; and it will continue so.

Mr. Roberts: Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman, like his predecessors in office, conduct periodic progress examinations with other Government Departments involved in the programme of bilingualism? In particular, will he look at the position in the Inland Revenue Department, where so far very little, or very inadequate, informative and explanatory material in the Welsh language has been issued with regard to the new income tax system that is due to come into force next April?

Mr. Thomas: I shall certainly look into that matter and I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for bringing it to my attention. I know that an explanatory note on value added tax has just been published in Welsh.

Livestock (Export)

Mr. Hooson: asked the Secretary of State for Wales if he will take steps to


publicise the merits and attractions of Welsh native breeds of animals for export for breeding purposes.

The Minister of State, Welsh Office (Mr. David Gibson-Watt): Publicity for individual breeds is a matter for the breed societies and breeders concerned. I hope that they will make full use of the facilities available from the Government's export services and from export promotion organisations.

Mr. Hooson: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that over the years there has been a good deal of discontent among breeders in Wales at the Livestock Export Council not having enthusiastically supported Welsh breeds? As this could be an important factor in the agricultural life of the Principality in the future, will the hon. Gentleman see to it that the council shows more enthusiasm for Welsh breeds than it has done in the past?

Mr. Gibson-Watt: The hon. and learned Gentleman will realise that in the past I was Chairman of the Livestock Export Council and I therefore have some knowledge of this matter. Knowing that the hon. and learned Gentleman has great knowledge of the Welsh Black Cattle Society, last night as a matter of urgency, I spoke to the president of the society and he told me that the exports of Welsh black cattle are very encouraging indeed.

Queensferry Bypass

Mr. Barry Jones: asked the Secretary of State for Wales what special emergency measures he will take to alleviate traffic congestion on the Queensferry bypass and the surrounding area.

Mr. Gibson-Watt: I have nothing further to add to the answer given to the hon. Member on 10th April.

Mr. Jones: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that traffic conditions at Queens-ferry roundabout are a sorry and hair-raising shambles and are impeding industrial development? Will he sanction the immediate erection of a flyover at the Queensferry roundabout and thus help the steel and Vauxhall car workers?
Finally, may I ask whether the Secretary of State for Wales is aware that in my constituency we call him Peter

Promise because he gives no action but only promises?

Mr. Gibson-Watt: I cannot accept the hon. Gentleman's winding up comment. I am aware that there has been congestion in the area to which the Question refers, and the Department has been concerned about it for some time. Although the construction of a temporary flyover could afford some relief, it would take some time to design and erect and would be likely to cause additional complications on this restricted site when the improved junction comes to be built.

Government Contracts

Mr. John: asked the Secretary of State for Wales if he will initiate a study into the employment aspects of Government contracts in Wales.

Mr. Peter Thomas: Policy on Government contracts is kept under regular review.

Mr. John: That may reassure the right hon. and learned Gentleman but it reassures no one else. Is he aware that Government contracts placed in Wales are serviced by a contractor bringing in his own labour from other parts of the country, which is no good for unemployed building workers in Wales? This practice and the policy in other industry such as opencast mining are in urgent need of review because the employment feedback is not coming to Wales as it should.

Mr. Thomas: I am aware that many people want contractors to employ more local people than they do, but the employment of local labour is a matter for the contractor and the client. The Government cannot intervene. The main aim must be to complete the contract as economically and efficiently as possible.

Celtic Sea Oil

Mr. Nicholas Edwards: asked the Secretary of State for Wales what consideration he has given to establishing a central information service for Welsh industrialists about the opportunities arising from Celtic sea oil exploration.

Mr. Peter Thomas: I am arranging for this suggestion to be looked at in more detail by my Department and the other organisations which might be concerned.

Mr. Edwards: I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend for that reply. Is he aware that one of the most important services that the Government can perform for Wales is to identify the immense opportunities that will arise for Welsh industrialists as a result of oil exploration? Is he further aware that Scottish experience shows that the Government have a key role to play in this direction?

Mr. Thomas: I was very interested to see the recommendation in the recent CBI report on the opportunities for Welsh industry. I hope that it will be possible to have the CBI ideas discussed in more detail very shortly. The report is a helpful contribution to thinking on the prospects for Welsh industry.

Singleton Hospital, Swansea

Mr. Alan Williams: asked the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make a statement on the future of Swansea's Singleton Hospital.

Mr. Gibson-Watt: The Welsh Hospital Board has just issued a consultation document on its proposals for the hospital service in the Swansea area. It is therefore not appropriate for me to make a statement at this stage.

Mr. Williams: Does the Minister realise that it is felt in Swansea to be completely unsatisfactory that decisions about the eventual size of the Singleton Hospital are dependent on a decision that must he taken about the medical school in Swansea, as that decision apparently will not he made for a long time? Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the city council has made it absolutely clear that it is willing to provide land for such a school but that it has been unable to obtain guidance from the board? Will he ensure that such guidance is given as to whether the retention in use of Sketty Lane will or will not stop the eventual provision of a medical school in Swansea?

Mr. Gibson-Watt: I am aware of the problem. I visited Swansea about two years ago and discussed with representatives of the council the question of the medical school. Although I understand the hon. Gentleman's concern, it is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science,

and any question about Sketty Lane must be a matter for the council.

Government Factories

Mr. Ifor Davies: asked the Secretary of State for Wales what progress has been made in the completion of the Cwmgorse advance factory in the Pontardawe district of the Gower constituency; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Peter Thomas: I understand that negotiations for the allocation of this factory are at an advanced stage. I am hopeful of a successful outcome in the very near future.

Mr. Davies: I thank the right hon. and learned Gentleman for that helpful reply. Is he aware that the people of the area will receive this hopeful note with sonic satisfaction? They are people who have had more than their fair share of the social consequences of pit closures. Is he also aware that this could be a breakthrough from an employment point of view for this inland community and that it justifies the policy consistently advocated from the Opposition side of the House in favour of advance factories and investment grants? In view of the likely success of the negotiations, will the Secretary of State consider a further advance factory for this special development district, in accordance with the terms of the rolling programme for mining communities?

Mr. Thomas: I certainly appreciate the importance to the area of an allocation of the factory to suitable industrialists. I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman for his efforts to secure a tenant for the factory. As to a further advance factory, I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry will keep it in mind.

Mr. Goronwy Roberts: asked the Secretary of State for Wales what liaison there is between his Department and others in the effort to secure a tenant for the Government-built factory at Penygroes, Caernarvonshire which has been empty for more than two years.

Mr. Peter Thomas: My Department has maintained the closest contact with the Department of Trade and Industry.

Mr. Roberts: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that that is a most disappointing answer? Is he further aware that there is deep and increasing concern in Caernarvonshire about the continuing inability of the Welsh Office and related Departments to attract a suitable tenant for this factory, particularly in view of the excellent facilities which it has and the high class of local labour available? Is he aware of certain recent suggestions made locally about the possibility of using this factory to produce equipment and fittings for the proposed hydro-electric scheme at Dinorwic? Has any attention been given to this proposal by the Caernarvonshire County Council?

Mr. Thomas: I would certainly agree with the right hon. Gentleman that it is extremely disappointing that a suitable tenant has not been found for this excellent factory. As he knows the Government have spent a considerable amount of money recently in modernising the factory. They have drawn it to the attention of industrialists, through the Department of Trade and Industry, on all suitable occasions. I am satisfied that every effort is being made to find a tenant for this factory. The right hon. Gentleman will appreciate the difficulties. I believe that the Caernarvonshire County Council proposes to send a deputation to discuss its suggestion with the Central Electricity Generating Board.

M4 Extension (Public Inquiries)

Mr. Michael Roberts: asked the Secretary of State for Wales whether he intends to hold a separate public inquiry for each section of the proposed western extension of the M4.

Mr. Peter Thomas: Yes, Sir. I intend to hold separate inquiries into each section of the M4 wherever such inquiries are necessary.

Mr. Roberts: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that there is public concern over the method by which public inquiries are undertaken on proposed motorway developments? One cause of concern is that when inquiries are set up in the way he intends to adopt for the M4, on a piecemeal basis, which may be suitable for the allocation of finance and may measure up to the construction resources available, they do not give the

public the opportunity to participate, except in detail. There is growing concern that opportunities to raise the important aspects of planning, which are environmental, social and broadly economic, are denied the public at such inquiries.

Mr. Thomas: I agree that there is concern, and for that reason I looked into the matter very carefully and considered whether it would be more advantageous to have a public inquiry involving sections of the road. But I am satisfied that by keeping each section reasonably short it is possible to consider line and side road orders together—a procedure which is generally welcomed in that it enables everyone concerned to see the full implication of each part of the proposed line. If we attempted a longer section, the length and complexity of the orders, schedules and maps would be virtually unmanageable at public inquiries and extremely confusing to members of the public, particularly those directly concerned.

Mr. Rowlands: Will the Secretary of State give a categorical assurance that the M4 will be completed by the end of 1976, as was programmed in June 1970?

Mr. Thomas: The hon. Gentleman should know that it is impossible for me to give a categorical assurance. All I can say is that that is what is planned, and I have no reason to doubt that it will be effected by then. But various statutory procedures must be gone through. I cannot bulldoze the road through without regard to the interests of the public.

Mr. Gower: asked the Secretary of State for Wales whether he proposes to hold a single public inquiry or more than one public inquiry in connection with the routeing of the remaining sections of the motorway M4 between Castleton and Chapel-Llanilltern; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Peter Thomas: A public inquiry into my proposals for the section between Coryton and Capel Llanilltern is due to start on 23rd January 1973. A decision on the holding of a public inquiry into the Coryton/Castleton section will be taken after formal proposals have been published.

Mr. Gower: Despite my right hon. and learned Friend's reply to my hon. Friend


the Member for Cardiff, North (Mr. Michael Roberts), will he look at the matter again as the anxieties expressed by residents' associations and individual residents at Whitchurch, Rhiwbina, Lisvane and other places are based on a fear that if my right hon. and learned Friend makes a decision for one section, that will prevent his having a free choice in the other sections? In other words, by adopting a certain route through, say, Whitchurch, he will remove the possibility of an impartial judgment of the different routes in the other sections, so it seems to me—

Mr. Speaker: Order. This is Question Time. The hon. Gentleman has put a point already.

Mr. Gower: In the light of what I have said, will my right hon. and learned Friend reconsider the matter?

Mr. Thomas: As I said in answer to the previous Question, I have looked into the matter very carefully. I appreciate that the anxieties of which my hon. Friend speaks have been expressed. I have been very anxious to meet the concern that is undoubtedly felt, but in view of the complexity of having a public inquiry over a long line I am sure that the proper course, one that is in the interests of all the objectors, is to have inquiries on small sections. There is no objection to the raising of the wider strategy of the motorway at a public inquiry into any particular section.

Council Housing

Mr. Rowlands: asked the Secretary of State for Wales what measures he now intends to take to boost the level of council house building in Wales.

Mr. Gibson-Watt: The new subsidy system concentrates resources on people and areas in need; special yardstick allowances were introduced last month; and the clearance of slums will, I hope, be speeded up as a result of the new special subsidy.

Mr. Rowlands: Is the Minister aware that 1972 will go down as the sorriest in council house building for many years and that the figures could be as low as any since the early 1960s? Is not the best thing to do to abolish the Housing

Finance Act, which is creating great confusion and uncertainty, and establish a generous system for council house building in Wales?

Mr. Gibson-Watt: The hon. Gentleman will be aware that there are other ways of building houses and that it is for the local authorities to determine their own needs. Officials of the Welsh Office will continue to give whatever help and encouragement is necessary.

Mr. George Thomas: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that only local authorities build houses to rent and that many thousands of families in Wales are waiting for a house? In view of the disastrous house building figures so far this year, will the hon. Gentleman show a greater sense of urgency and look into the matter again?

Mr. Gibson-Watt: I cannot agree with the right hon. Gentleman. He says that the house building figures are bad this year, but taken as a whole they are not bad.

Mr. Rowlands: We are talking about council house building.

Mr. Gibson-Watt: That was not what the hon. Gentleman said. If the figures as a whole are coupled with the great success of improvement grants, it will be seen that the housing position in Wales is much better than Opposition Members try to make out.

Mr. Alec Jones: asked the Secretary of State for Wales what is his estimate of the number of houses to be completed in the public sector in Wales in the whole of 1972.

Mr. Gibson-Watt: Over 4,000.

Mr. Jones: Is the Minister of State aware from that answer that there is a real slump in council house building which, coupled with the unprecedented rise in house prices, means that many thousands of young families in Wales will be many years without a home of their own? Apart from words, what practical steps will the Government take?

Mr. Gibson-Watt: The hon. Gentleman was present during a recent debate in the early hours of the morning when this subject was dealt with. The new housing subsidies replacing the old outdated and


indiscriminate system will concentrate financial help where it is most needed.

Industrial Development (South-East Wales)

Mr. Kinnock: asked the Secretary of State for Wales what proposals he has for attracting new industry to South-East Wales in the next five years.

Mr. Peter Thomas: The Government will use the full resources available for regional development, including the Industry Act, for this purpose.

Mr. Kinnock: Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman realise that the attraction of new industry has become even more critical because of the threat that is poised over the steel industry in Wales? Which of the rumours circulating in yesterday's newspapers was true—the one to the effect that he and his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland were making a valiant fight to safeguard regional steel interests or the one to the effect that they had already lost? Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that as the report that give him the most credit was written by dear Miss Nora Beloff we attach the usual degree of authenticity to it?

Mr. Thomas: The hon. Gentleman should not believe rumours which he reads in newspapers. No decision has yet been made by the Government on the proposals put forward by the British Steel Corporation.

Mr. Michael Foot: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware, as I am sure he must be, that the corporation's proposals in regard to Ebbw Vale are totally unacceptable to the people of Ebbw Vale—

Mr. Speaker: Order. That does not arise out of this Question. It might arise out of a later Question.

Mr. Callaghan: I have a question which arises out of this Question, Mr Speaker. Has the Secretary of State been approached by the Rover Company about its proposed redundancies in Car diff during the next few months? Will he undertake to see the company and also representatives of the workers concerned, because this is another blow in addition to the one we fear in connection with East Moors?

Mr. Thomas: I am aware that the Rover Company has announced that there will be added investment in Cardiff which will be an acceptable piece of news for one part of the company's factory. I am aware that there will be redundancies in another part of the factory involving white collar workers. My Department is in close touch with the Department of Trade and Industry about this matter.

House Prices

Mr. McBride: asked the Secretary of State for Wales what was the average selling price of three-bedroom detached and three-bedroom semi-detached bungalows in Swansea in the years 1969, 1970, 1971 and to 31st October 1972, stating the increase in percentage terms for each of these periods.

Mr. Gibson-Watt: Statistics are not kept on the basis of particular types of dwellings in specific towns.

Mr. McBride: Is the Minister of State aware that I do not think anyone tells him anything, that in Swansea increases in house prices are scandalous and that although they may be a speculator's dream they are a Welsh national scandal? Is the hon. Gentleman aware further that the Fair Trading Bill gives no protection against gazumping, which is morally indefensible but is legally permissible under the present Government and a practice which is responsible for snowballing house price increases? Lastly, will the hon. Gentleman bear in mind that this factor causes great financial hardship and frustrates especially those who are about to set up house? Will he tell the Government to take their fingers out and get on with it and do something?

Mr. Gibson-Watt: The way to keep house prices down is to build more houses. In Swansea 50 per cent. more houses were under construction in the first nine months of this year than in the same period in 1971. On the question of gazumping, I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General gave to the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, North (Mr. McNamara) on 6th November.

Mr. Gower: Will my hon. Friend press local authorities throughout Wales to


release land more quickly for housing development and to impose conditions that land released shall be used for building houses within a very limited time?

Mr. Gibson-Watt: Certainly. The question of land in South-East Wales has been concerning my right hon. and learned Friend and myself. We take every opportunity of encouraging local authorities to release land wherever possible.

Steel Industry

Mr. Roy Hughes: asked the Secretary of State for Wales what recent discussions he has had with the British Steel Corporation about the future of the steel industry in Monmouthshire.

Mr. Barry Jones: asked the Secretary of State for Wales what recent discussions he has had with the British Steel Corporation about the future of the steel industry in Flintshire.

Mr. Peter Thomas: I am in close touch on all aspects of the Welsh steel industry.

Mr. Hughes: Does the Secretary of State appreciate that there is now a chaotic situation in the steel industry in Monmouthshire and that a great fight will be made to keep Ebbw Vale as an integrated works? We hope that the right hon. and learned Gentleman will assist in this fight to the point of resignation. Will he bear in mind one key factor, namely, the nearness of iron ore supplies? Will he press on the British Steel Corporation the need to go ahead with the Uskmouth project to serve the steel industry in Monmouth?

Mr. Peter Thomas: I am fully aware of the concern which has been expressed in Wales about announcements which have been made by the corporation. The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that the proposals recently announced for Ebbw Vale largely reflect the corporation's announcement in March 1970 that it saw no long-term future for iron and steelmaking there and are confirmation of it.

Mr. Michael Foot: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that the proposals made by the corporation for Ebbw Vale are totally unacceptable to the people of Ebbw Vale and that dis-

cussions have been initiated to cover the whole matter between the works council and the corporation? Will he give an undertaking that the Government will give no sanction or approval to any of those proposals until the discussions have been fully completed?

Mr. Peter Thomas: I agree that great discussions are taking place. There are still many aspects of the corporation's proposals which have to be discussed, particularly the timing and the phasing of the proposed rundown. I have in hand a most urgent and detailed appraisal of the infra-structure needs of the area. There are to be talks later this year between representatives of all the Government Departments concerned in Wales and representatives of the Heads of the Valleys Standing Conference. My officials will be reporting the outcome to me. I look forward to further discussions as soon as possible.

Mr. Jones: Is the Cabinet split over the future of Shotton? Will the Secretary of State resign if he fails to protect steel-making at Shotton? Did he enjoy Lord Melchett walking over him last week?

Mr. Peter Thomas: The hon. Gentleman has frequently shown that he is totally unaware of what is going in Government and British Steel Corporation circles in respect of these proposals. The hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that I am fully aware of all the points that have been made—effectively by some people—about Shotton's future.

Sir A. Meyer: Will my right hon. and learned Friend undertake not to be rushed into making public the Government's decision? Does he accept that it is generally appreciated that the Government have a much better understanding of the social implications involved in all this than the British Steel Corporation and that the longer the Government take to make up their minds, the better?

Mr. Peter Thomas: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. The proposals which have been put forward by the corporation are being most carefully studied by the Government. I realise that anxiety is felt in many parts of Wales. I agree with my hon. Friend that this is a decision which should not be rushed. It is a major economic and social question and hon. Members


do Wales a disservice in pressing for decisions too urgently.

Mr. George Thomas: I appreciate that this is a matter that affects Wales deeply and that the Government are right to take all social considerations into account, as we have pressed them to do, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Flint, East (Mr. Barry Jones), to whom the Secretary of State referred disparagingly. Is what the right hon. and learned Gentleman said the Government's way of telling us that we are not to have a statement on steel before Christmas?

Mr. Peter Thomas: I am obviously unable to say when an announcement will be made. I have made it my business to be fully in touch with all developments affecting the future of the Welsh steel industry. In my discussions I am taking fully into account the implications for employment in Wales and the social consequences of any major recession in the steel industry.

Office Space (Newtown)

Mr. Hooson: asked the Secretary of State for Wales if he will take steps to encourage Government Departments and public authorities to move to Newtown, Montgomeryshire, to occupy the new offices now being built by the Mid-Wales Development Corporation.

Mr. Gibson-Watt: I am fully aware of the importance to Newtown of securing tenants for the new offices and I have this very much in mind whenever Government Departments and public authorities require new accommodation.

Mr. Hooson: Does that reply mean that the hon. Gentleman's Department will encourage Government Departments to move there, because it is important that a development such as Newtown should have a wide range of job opportunities? Is it not a desirable policy that wherever possible there should be centralisation of Government Departments?

Mr. Gibson-Watt: If the hon. and learned Gentleman is asking me to give priority to Newtown I am afraid that would not be possible. Other towns have strong claims. I am sure he will share my pleasure that the tenders for the office block have recently been accepted and

that work is expected to start early next year, for completion by the end of 1974.

Unemployment

Mr. John: asked the Secretary of State for Wales if he will commission a study into the problems of long-term unemployment in Wales.

Mr. Peter Thomas: No Sir. Long-term unemployment is already the subject of close study and Government action in the form of a variety of types of assistance is already in train to solve the problems of unemployment generally.

Mr. John: Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman realise that since October 1971 such long-term unemployment has increased in Wales by 50 per cent., certainly in my constituency? Besides talking about the need for close attention, which the Secretary of State regularly trots out, will he say when will be the time for action?

Mr. Thomas: I am concerned about the rise in long-term unemployment in Pontypridd. This has been largely due in the past year to the redundancies arising from economic difficulties which Government policies are now putting right. As at July of this year the proportion of long-term unemployed in the travel-to-work area as a whole was not significantly greater than the national average. The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that unemployment in the Pontypridd travel-to-work area has fallen from 6·9 per cent. to 5·3 per cent. over the past three months.

Mr. John Morris: Will the Secretary of State accept that the continued delay in making a definitive statement about the steel industry increases the fear of long-term unemployment in every Welsh steel community? Will he also confirm that the discussions at the highly publicised secret meeting of Ministers with Lord Melchett were based on the nationalisation plan put forward by the corporation, the Government having rejected the corporation's original proposals to produce 42 million tons of steel by 1980? How would a return to that figure affect the long-term unemployment in Wales?

Mr. Thomas: I appreciate that we should not delay for too long in making


an announcement about the Government's decision on the corporation's proposals. It is important to remove the uncertainties. I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that the Government are anxious to reach a conclusion as soon as possible.

Carmarthen—Pembroke Dock Road

Mr. Nicholas Edwards: asked the Secretary of State for Wales what plans he has for improving the road between Carmarthen and Pembroke Dock.

Mr. Gibson-Watt: Five schemes for the improvement of sections of the road between St. Clears and Nash are included in the firm programme for commencement within the next two years. Three others for building dual carriageways for a total of 10 miles of the Carmarthen to St. Clears road, including the bypassing of Carmarthen, are in the preparation pool.

Mr. Edwards: Is my hon. Friend aware that the road goes westward from St. Clears? Is he further aware that when the Minister for Industrial Development visited Pembrokeshire on Friday every industrialist agreed that this was the most important single step that could be taken by the Government to assist West Wales in gaining benefits from offshore oil exploration? Is he aware that it has been rendered even more important by the unsatisfactory state of a number of the bridges on the road?

Mr. Gibson-Watt: I am aware of all those points. The Government have spent a considerable amount of money on the M4 in South Wales. We intend to press on as hard as we can in this direction.

Manufacturing Industry (Employment)

Mr. Alan Williams: asked the Secretary of State for Wales how many manufacturing jobs are in prospect in Wales; and how this compares with those available at 30th June, 1970.

Mr. Peter Thomas: There were 30,900 in July, 1970. A comparable current figure cannot be given because of changes in industrial development certificate procedures. The figure for August, 1972 was 16,300 and there are indications of a significant revival in industrial interest in recent months.

Mr. Williams: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that, unacceptably high as the present level of unemployment in Wales is, the Government have succeeded in keeping the figure at these levels only by eating up the 30,000 to 40,000 jobs that were in the pipeline, without doing anything to replace them? Can he tell us what study is being undertaken within his Department of the effect of the abandonment of the regional employment premium, which is soon to come about, upon labour-intensive industries in Wales?

Mr. Peter Thomas: The number of jobs in the pipeline is measured by the number of industrial development certificates. For instance, one of the jobs in the pipeline in 1969 was the Alcoa proposals for the rolling mill, which was abandoned. That has now been revived because of Britain's entry into the European Commuinty and an upsurge in demand. It is not proposed that regional employment premium should stop immediately but that it should be phased out from 1974 onwards. It has yet to be decided what will take its place.

Mr. George Thomas: Is the Secretary of State aware that it was the Government's policy which delayed the Alcoa project by two years and that it is only now, when investment grants have been restored, that this proposal has gone ahead. Is he further aware that his failure to tell us how many jobs are in the pipeline is bound to cause further anxiety in Wales? The Government must have the statistics. Will the Secretary of State give the House the figure which the Welsh Office has in mind?

Mr. Peter Thomas: I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman has raised this matter because the 1969 Alcoa development was postponed indefinitely, as I understand it, due to the general economic climate here and abroad. Its reinstatement shows industry's confidence in the way the Government are putting the British economy right. I hope the right hon. Gentleman has noted that one of the principal reasons given by the firm is our forthcoming accession to the EEC.

Glamorgan Airport

Mr. Gower: asked the Secretary of State for Wales what plans he has for the future ownership and administration


of the Glamorgan, Rhoose, airport; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Peter Thomas: As I have previously told the House, at this stage this must be primarily a matter for discussion between the local authorities concerned, but I would welcome their views.

Mr. Gower: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that whatever local authority or consortium of local authorities may own this expanding airport in future, the initial capital expenditure involved in its enlargement must constitute a considerable financial burden? As since the end of the last war Wales has had only a puny amount of expenditure on civil aviation compared with other parts of the United Kingdom, will my right hon. and learned Friend consider what extra help he can give to the maintenance and expansion of Rhoose airport?

Mr. Thomas: Yes, certainly, this matter is being considered at the moment.

New Houses (Purchase)

Mr. Rowlands: asked the Secretary of State for Wales what measures his Department intends to take to provide adequate safeguards and protection for buyers of new houses in Wales.

Mr. Gibson-Watt: The National House Builders Registration Council's scheme already provides a large measure of protection and the Defective Premises Act will come into force on 1st January 1974. The Law Commission is studying the problem of gazumping.

Mr. Rowlands: Is the Minister aware that those measures have totally failed to safeguard home buyers during the last two years and that the speculative processes have continued? Is he not aware, for example, that when a buyer signs a house-to-house contract he may find six or seven months later that the garage is non-existent or that a fitted kitchen turns out to be just a top sink unit? Will the Department do something about the way home buyers are so badly treated at the moment?

Mr. Gibson-Watt: As I said on an earlier Question, the whole matter of gazumping was answered by my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-

General some time ago. It is certainly a difficult problem which the Law Commission has been studying.

Mr. Kinnock: But will the hon. Gentleman recognise that while the NHBRC's attempts are laudable they fall very far short of what is necessary in safeguarding the position for new home buyers? Is he aware that they do not cover the upkeep or condition of estates when they are left by developers and that constantly we have dirty, unsightly, unhealthy and dangerous estates throughout South Wales?

Mr. Gibson-Watt: If the hon. Member has any particular problem he wants to draw to my attention, please let him do so. With regard to the general matter of the NHBRC, the council still believes that it is important that it should maintain its present character. Local authorities have been recommended to lend only on new houses covered by the scheme and the Building Societies Association has made a similar recommendation to its members.

Tonyrefail Bypass

Mr. Alec Jones: asked the Secretary of State for Wales what stage has been reached in the planning of the Tonyrefail bypass.

Mr. Gibson-Watt: Glamorgan County Council, the highway authority, is carrying out preliminary survey work. My right hon. and learned Friend awaits its proposals.

Mr. Jones: Does not the Minister agree that this road would be of considerable advantage to the commuters who travel daily from Rhondda to Llantrisant and Cardiff and that it would be of tremendous advantage in attracting new industry to the whole area? Will he take steps to speed up the construction of this vital road?

Mr. Gibson-Watt: I would not disagree with the hon. Member about the importance of the matter. I believe he wrote to the Welsh Office in December 1971 about it. All I would say is that it is a matter for the local authority concerned.

CHIEF RENTS AND RENT CHARGES

Mr. Michael Cocks: asked the Attorney General when he expects to receive the Law Commissioners' proposals with regard to chief rents or rent charges on freehold land.

The Attorney-General (Sir Peter Rawlinson): The Law Commission expects to issue a further working paper on the subject before Easter. I do not yet know when the Commission will report.

Mr. Cocks: I am obliged to the right hon. and learned Gentleman for that reply, but he will recall that he gave me the answer exactly a year ago that we would get the report this year. The law is notorious for its delays, but does not the Attorney-General realise that literally tens of thousands of people are anxiously awaiting this report? Will he please make sure that his fresh assurance about Easter will be kept?

The Attorney-General: As the hon. Gentleman will recollect, first a working paper on the subject was issued by the Law Commission in September 1969, and this is a second working paper. The hon. Member may recollect that proposals were spoken about in the House of Commons in August 1972. It is a very complex matter. I will certainly see that the hon. Member's comments are brought to the attention of the Law Commission.

SUPREME COURT (DORMANT FUNDS)

Mr. Clinton Davis: asked the Attorney-General if he will introduce legislation to enable a substantial proportion of the capital of dormant funds under the control of the Supreme Court of England to be applied for national purposes.

The Attorney-General: Dormant funds are already applied for national purposes in that the income derived from them is surrendered to the Consolidated Fund.

Mr. Davis: Why does not the Attorney-General apply part of the corpus of the fund to national constructive purposes along the lines of the legistration introduced by the Irish Government which

enabled the Abbey Theatre to be built? If the principle has already been conceded by using the interest, why cannot the corpus be used?

The Attorney-General: The hon. Member will appreciate that this is a surplus which is transferred to the National Debt Commissioners and is invested by them. Having regard to what the hon. Member says, I will certainly put the proposal to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

LEGAL AID

Mr. Clinton Davis: asked the Attorney-General if he will initiate legislation to extend legal aid to proceedings before rent assessment panels and rent tribunals.

The Attorney-General: This will be reconsidered in the light of the outcome of research which is now proceeding.

Mr. Davis: Can the right hon. and learned Gentleman give some indication as to when this research will be completed? Is he aware that there is tremendous homelessness existing in stress areas of inner London and that one of the ways at least of mitigating this situation would be through legal aid to grant representation before rent tribunals, thereby getting at the matter at source rather than waiting until the situation is too late?

The Attorney-General: The hon. Member will recollect that some time ago there were indications that legal aid might not be the most appropriate aid that was needed for this particular kind of tribunal. The Nuffield Foundation is doing the bulk of this research. I understand that it is sufficiently advanced that we may hope that by the summer we may get some advice from it.

Mr. Rose: Is not a general principle involved that where legal representation is permitted, failure to allow legal aid gives one party a distinct advantage in the proceedings? Will the Attorney-General look into this, more particularly in the context of industrial tribunals, where frequently far more complex cases occur than in the county courts and where the administration is often far more difficult for those appearing before those tribunals? Is he aware that legal


aid would at least give the parties to those tribunals the equal right to a voice before them?

The Attorney-General: As I said, there was doubt about what was the most appropriate aid which could be given. It was for this reason that the Nuffield Foundation—as were two universities also—was engaged in the research. It is therefore sensible to await the outcome of the Nuffield Foundation recommendations.

WELSH LANGUAGE ACT

Mr. Ellis: asked the Attorney. General if he has received the report of the inquiry conducted by Lord Justice Edmund Davies on the workings of the Welsh Language Act 1967; and if he will make a statement.

The Attorney-General: My noble Friend the Lord Chancellor has received a personal report from Lord Justice Edmund Davies following his informal inquiry into the working of the Welsh Language Act in the courts in Wales. My noble Friend is studying this report.

Mr. Ellis: Is the Attorney-General aware that that answer will be received with satisfaction by many people in Wales? Does he not agree, however, that it would be sensible to publish the report so that an objective report of the situation can be provided for evidence for the courts in England. where, for example, in recent cases there have been such idiosyncratic happenings as sending batches of defendants collectively for mental reports because of their request to use their native language through an interpreter? That might be obviated

The Attorney-General: As the hon. Member appreciates, this is an informal report which the Lord Chancellor asked Lord Justice Edmund Davies to make. My noble Friend received it only in the last month. It is still under study and consideration.

RAILWAY CLOSURES (LEAKAGE OF INFORMATION)

Mr. Leslie Huckfield: asked the Attorney-General whether he will make a statement about his intention to insti-

tute proceedings under the Official Secrets Act or the Theft Act, in connection with the leakage of confidential information regarding railway closures.

Mr. Dalyell: asked the Attorney-General what decision has now been taken by the Director of Public Prosecutions as a result of the police entry to the offices of the Railway Review.

The Attorney-General: The police investigations have not yet been completed. No decision can be taken about the possible institution of criminal proceedings until the Director of Public Prosecutions has received and considered the police report.

Mr. Huckfield: May I ask the Attorney-General when this monstrous and sinister witch-hunt of the Press is to end? Is he aware that there is a strong suspicion that a telephone call I made to the editor of the Railway Gazette on 1st December was tapped? Is he aware that the police have used blackmail in connection with questioning of the assistant editor of the Railway Gazette? Is he aware that many sections of the Press are afraid to comment because of possible proceedings under the Official Secrets Act? Can he not tell this House now whether the leak procedure is in process or not? Can he not tell this House now whether he intends to proceed under the Theft Act or the Official Secrets Act? Does he not think it is time that the Government came clean on this very dangerous, this very monstrous, threat to the freedom of the Press in this country?

The Attorney-General: The hon. Gentleman has made several dramatic statements. In fact the matter is as follows. There was an inquiry into the loss of a classified confidential document by a Department. The procedure is that the Director of Public Prosecutions is told and he calls for a police investigation. That police investigation is taking place. It would have been quite improper for the Department to have hidden the fact that a confidential document was missing. The House will recollect the interest which was shown in the missing documents at the time of the V & G inquiry. If, as a result of these inquiries, there is any evidence against any person, doubtless prosecution will be considered,


but until the investigation has been completed it would be improper for me to say anything further.

Mr. Harold Wilson: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman tell us why in one case the warning was under the Theft Act and in the other case under the Officials Secrets Act? Secondly, as there is still a little confusion, despite the clarification by the Prime Minister last week, will he say whether this is happening under the leak procedure and the follow-up to it or under the separate procedure referred to by the Prime Minister? Thirdly, recollecting the Prime Ministerial directive of 1964 that the telephones of Members of Parliament would not be tapped, will the Government give a similar directive with regard to tapping the telephones of the British Press?

The Attorney-General: I know nothing about the third matter, which is for my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary. In reply to the second question, when a classified confidential document is missing and the inquiries instituted by the Department are exhausted, the procedure is for the Director of Public Prosecutions to be informed. Having been informed of the position, he causes a police investigation to take place. That is what happened on this occasion. I understand that the search warrant was taken out by the police under the Theft Act.

Mr. Wilson: Perhaps the right hon. and learned Gentleman may be a little more forthcoming about this when the decision of the DPP has been taken. Is he saying that this is consequential on the use of the leak procedure, of which the House was given details, or is it a separate procedure?

The Attorney-General: The leak procedure is carried out by the Department. If when the Department has concluded its inquiries it finds that there are further matters which it feels should be investigated, the matter is passed to the Director of Public Prosecutions who calls for a police investigation. I will bear in mind what the right hon. Gentleman has said about waiting until after the police investigation has been concluded, but I repeat that nobody is immune from investigation if the police feel that there is a proper matter to investigate.

Mr. Huckfield: In view of the disgracefully unsatisfactory nature of the answer, I beg leave to give notice that I shall raise the matter on the Adjournment of the House.

SWINE VESICULAR DISEASE

Mr. Peart: (by Private Notice) asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement on the outbreak of swine vesicular disease.

The Minister of State for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Anthony Stodart): On Friday 15th December my right hon. Friend was advised by the Animal Virus Research Institute at Pirbright that the virus responsible for the first three outbreaks in Staffordshire was not foot-and-mouth disease virus but a virus similar to those which the institute isolated and studied following outbreaks in Italy in 1966 and Hong Kong in 1971. While pigs which are affected develop signs and symptoms which are indistinguishable from foot-and-mouth disease, the virus has not affected other cloven-footed animals and, as my right hon. Friend announced on Friday, the disease has been named swine vesicular disease. An order was made on Friday extending to swine vesicular disease all the restrictions and controls which are applied in dealing with foot-and-mouth disease but in present circumstances slaughter is being confined to pigs.
The total number of outbreaks confirmed is eight and the infected area was extended southwards in Warwickshire and Worcestershire on Friday. The first three outbreaks were directly linked with the initial outbreak and four of the five subsequent outbreaks appear to be linked with one another through the movement of either swill or pigs.

Mr. Peart: I thank the Minister of State for his reply. As he will appreciate, this is a worrying time for those in the industry. I hope that he will still exercise caution about carriers even though only pigs are to be slaughtered. We still do not know the incubation period of the virus involved, but I do not want to harry anyone about that. I feel that the Ministry is well aware of this and that its scientists and advisory officers are doing all they can, and I wish them success. We are concerned about this,


and I hope that the Minister will continue to keep the House informed.

Mr. Stodart: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for what he said on the BBC yesterday and for what he said today about the work done by the Department. The precautions are entirely the same as those for foot-and-mouth disease because, as the right hon. Gentleman said, we have no knowledge in this country of the length of survival of the virus We shall continue to exercise all the precautions which would be necessary for foot-and-mouth disease.

Mr. Biffen: Is my hon. Friend aware that in all quarters, particularly in the farming community, there is a wish that the warmest congratulations be extended to those at Pirbright who have been able to identify the disease so speedily? Is swine vesicular disease covered by any of the existing or draft regulations of the EEC concerned with animal health?

Mr. Stodart: I am much obliged to my hon. Friend for what he said. I shall have to investigate the second part of his question, and I will let him know.

Mr. Hooson: Will the Minister please confirm that not only do the foot-and-mouth regulations apply but that the compensation procedures are exactly the same? As the Minister is aware, these are very troublesome days for farmers who may be affected.

Mr. Stodart: The compensation payments are identical with those for foot-and-mouth disease. In those cases where cattle were lost—I think there were four—compensation will be paid as for foot-and-mouth disease.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: Will the Minister confirm that the source of the virus has as yet not been identified? Will he clear up the slight confusion which exists in Derbyshire about exactly how far there are restrictions on the movement of beasts and will he say what is the position about poultry and turkeys during the coming few days before Christmas?

Mr. Stodart: Investigations are still going on as to the origin. Swill was a factor in four of the primary outbreaks,

but no imports of either uncooked or unprocessed meat are coming in from Hong Kong or Italy, which have the only previous records of this disease. As I say, investigations are going on. If I may, I will let my hon. Friend know at the earliest moment about the precautions for poultry.

Mr. Mackie: Many farmers, particularly dairy farmers, insure against loss through foot-and-mouth disease. As this is not foot-and-mouth disease, how will farmers who had to have cattle slaughtered be placed?

Mr. Stodart: If any of the four has a consequential loss policy he will be covered up until Friday, when swine vesicular disease was diagnosed, because the insurance covers the slaughter of any stock under a foot-and-mouth order. After Friday, farmers will have to review their policies.

Mr. John Morris: Will the Minister convey sympathy to the farmers who have lost their stock—often the work of a lifetime—and also to the officials who had to make the decision to slaughter animals other than swine? Is the Minister satisfied that compensation is adequate, having regard to rising prices, and will he take into account the cost of re-stocking animals?

Mr. Stodart: I would certainly wish to place on record—and my right hon. Friend already has—my sympathy for those who have had their stock slaughtered. I am certain that I carry the House with me in saying that it would have been criminal folly if we had not acted at once on the assumption that foot-and-mouth disease was involved. As for replacement costs, I cannot go further than to say that the usual procedures will apply.

Mr. Alfred Morris: What consultations have the Department and Ministers had with other countries about possible causes of the outbreak?

Mr. Stodart: This will depend on the results of the investigations and the situation that will obtain when we have diagnosed the cause of the disease.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. James Prior): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a short business statement.
As the House knows, the Government have decided to make the £10 Christmas Bonus available to those pensioners previously excluded because of their earnings. This decision involves further legislation, which will be presented and published tomorrow.
Following the undertakings given by right hon. Members opposite to facilitate the passage of all stages of the Bill in one day, it is intended to bring it before the House as first business on Wednesday, in the hope that similar action can be taken in another place in time to allow Royal Assent to be signified before the House adjourns.

Mr. Harold Wilson: I should like to express satisfaction, which I am sure will be shared in all parts of the House, at the announcement made by the Leader of the House. I should like to endorse the statement made last Thursday by my right hon. Friend the Deputy Leader of the Opposition that we shall do all in our power to facilitate the progress of the forthcoming measure on Wednesday. I do not say that there will be no discussion whatever, but within the parameters announced by the right hon. Gentleman we hope that it will pass through the House with all speed and that this will interfere as little as possible with the important debate that is due to be held on that day.
Does the Bill extend to widows or the long-term sick? If not, is it drafted in a form in which amendments could be moved to that effect? Is the Leader of the House aware that we on this side of the House are grateful that the Ten Minute Rule Bill, the introduction of which was intimated by my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle), has prised open this issue and got the Government moving?

Mr. Prior: I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman's words and for his intimation that the Opposition will facilitate the Bill's progress this week. As I understand the situation, the Bill deals

with women over 60 and men over 65—in other words, those who have retired or who are drawing retirement pensions but who were previously omitted from the Bill's provisions because of the operation of the earnings rule. The Bill does not seek to go further than that. I understand that there is a further additional clause in the Bill to deal with another matter on which there has been consultation within the usual channels.

Mr. Hooson: May I on behalf of the Parliamentary Liberal Party welcome this news. [HON. MEMBERS: "Where are the rest of the Liberals?"] They are preparing for the next by-election. Would the Leader of the House confirm that if facilities are provided to allow the Bill to pass quickly through the House, payments will be made before Christmas?

Mr. Prior: I regret to say that it will be impossible to pay out before Christmas, but the vast majority of those concerned should be paid shortly after Christmas. About 1,500 of the 7,000 to whom the provisions will apply may have to apply personally for payment, and this will take a little while. Each case will be looked at individually, but the majority—80 per cent.—should be paid within a short time after Christmas.

Mr. Cockeram: Will the Bill take account of those men of pensionable age who on reaching pensionable age have decided to continue in employment but who have been made redundant and are drawing unemployment pay—which is the only income they have?

Mr. Prior: I must leave this sort of question to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services. As I understand the situation, the Bill relates to those who have retired but who were excluded by the operation of the earnings rule. However, I shall ask my right hon. Friend to deal with that point.

Mr. O'Malley: Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that the Secretary of State for Social Services and his Under-Secretary of State explained in the House that the principal reason for excluding these two categories of pensioner from the Bill was the Government's desire to make the payments before Christmas? Since the principle now appears to be that of making payments after Christmas, will the Leader of the


House consult again the Secretary of State and say to him, "Do not be a Scrooge this Chirstmas: pay the widows and long-term sick as well"?

Mr. Prior: This was one of the reasons for introducing this new legislation. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State explained in his Press handout on Friday, it was always the Government's intention that people who were not eligible because of the earnings rule would be excluded, but this was not made sufficiently clear and the Government thought it right to put the matter straight. I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that the matters he raised will fall outside the Bill as drafted, but this matter can be dealt with by my right hon. Friend and I will inform him of the hon. Gentleman's views.

NATIONAL INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS COURT

Mr. Atkinson: I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 9, for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration, namely,
The need to suspend the working of the National Industrial Relations Court to enable Parliament to reconsider certain effects on industry of the Industrial Relations Act 1971.
I raise this matter because of the critical situation in the engineering industry—a situation which will increase in intensity and which will engender more strikes as time passes.
The present engineering dispute is between the National Industrial Relations Court and the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers. The first thing to recognise about the dispute is that it cannot be solved either by strike action or by the National Industrial Relations Court—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I must remind the hon. Member that in making an application of this kind he is not entitled to make the sort of speech that he would be allowed to make if he were to succeed in his application. He must confine himself to the Standing Order No. 9 aspect.

Mr. Atkinson: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was merely making the point that the dispute cannot be cured by industrial action or by the National Industrial Relations Court. It is only in Parliament that we can see a solution to the problem. I am making this application so that we can debate a possible parliamentary solution. Therefore I am arguing that the NIRC should be suspended for a period so that we can seek a solution to the dispute.
The point is often made by Conservative Members that trade unions must obey the law—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] But which law? Is it the law made by the Industrial Relations Court, or the law created by precedent in the High Court? There is a contradiction between trade union rule books which have now been upheld by the High Court and the latest NIRC decision about the union membership of a certain Mr. Goad.
I suggest that the problem is registration and the fact that Parliament has never yet discussed the position of non-registered trade unions. I believe that it is now an urgent necessity for Parliament to debate the position of non-registered trade unions and the legal validity of their rule books.
In this situation, we need an authoritative statement from the Minister responsible. It will not be possible for the debate on the motion to be moved later today by the hon. Member for Bath (Sir E. Brown) to be used for this purpose. We are obliged to seek a special debate in the course of which these problems can be laid before the House. I believe that it is the view of many right hon. and hon. Members on this side of the House that the validity of trade union rule books is in doubt as a result of decisions of the National Industrial Relations Court, and tremendous problems have arisen.
Right hon. and hon. Members opposite say that the unions should use the National Industrial Relations Court. However, that in itself will not solve the problem, which is the origin of the dispute from which the engineering industry is suffering at the moment.
I seek to move the Adjournment of the House for the specific purpose of debating the position of the non-registered trade unions and the validity of non-registered rule books, especially from the


standpoint of whether trade union executives should be bound by their rule books or should seek some other way of achieving the good government of their trade unions in the absence of further legal decisions. Such is the ambiguity of the law and the contradictory nature of the present situation created by the Industrial Relations Court that many hon. Members now believe that it is necessary to suspend that count in order to debate these matters fully and thereby determine the position in law of non-registered trade unions.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Atkinson) was courteous enough to send me in writing the terms of his application, and he supported it with a letter setting out his reasons. I have studied it carefully. I have also considered carefully what he has said today. These are important matters. However, all that I have to decide is the procedural matter. If the hon. Gentleman studies Standing Order No. 9, I think he will realise that his application has not a chance of success. I am afraid that I must reject it.

INDUSTRY (TRADE UNIONS ROLE)

3.53 p.m.

Sir Edward Brown: I beg to move,
That this House calls attention to the damage inflicted on the whole community and to public respect of trade unionism's role within industry and generally in our society by the attitudes and activities of a small minority of extremist, politically-motivated militants within the trade union movement.
I apologise if my voice sounds a little strained. I have been somewhat queer—[Interruption.] I did not say anything about being queer. I said that I had been queer.
I am hoping that this debate will prove to be non-controversial in that the subject matter is such that there is a good deal of common ground between the two sides of the House. The people are sick, tired and thoroughly fed up with never knowing whose hands is on the switch, what is happening to public transport, who is holding up our exports and interfering with the publication of newspapers, such as we have experienced today. The people are looking to this House for guidance on how to cure these ills.
If any supporting evidence were needed in the shape of speeches in this House, I should need only to turn to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who not very long ago spoke of there being
…powerful men determined to degrade and defeat the elected Government, Conservative or Labour, in order to smash the system and impose their own sort of society.

Mr. Dennis Skinner: Name them.

Sir E. Brown: I shall name them in a moment.
Recently the right hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice) said:
I completely condemn people who try to use industrial relations as a means of wrecking society. What is needed in the trade union movement is much more participation by the majority of members so that a tiny minority don't have too much power.
In the past four or five weeks we have been greatly indebted to the publication known as the News of the World, which has been running a series of articles on the very subject that this House refuses

to discuss at any time. Earlier today we had a move to adjourn the House under Standing Order No. 9. But a debate on who does what in the industrial society in which we live is a far more urgent matter.
Who are the people behind the militancy in the trade union movement? Let me start with one Alan Tattam, who is a member of the Communist Party and a full-time employment officer with the Construction and Allied Trades Union. In the building workers strike he often sided with extremists against his union's official leadership. He told one mob raiding a London site: "Right lads, look menacing". He claimed:
We had to push the unions from below. They were reluctant to have the strike. Only the weight of feeling we uncovered forced the strike to escalate.
Let me quote Lou Lewis. Do right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite know him? He is a carpenter—

Mr. Skinner: So was Jesus Christ.

Sir E. Brown: Yes, but he was on the other side. Lou Lewis is also a member of the Communist Party. This is the fellow who on 10th August at a strike meeting at Conway Hall, London, said:
Remember this. This is a war. We are not mucking around and in this war we need a properly trained army to carry out military-style operations. The job we have to tackle covers 100 times the area Monty had to fight over at El Alamein.
Mr. Lewis, a former member of the Communist Party Executive Committee, makes no bones about his contempt for official union leaders. He said during the building strike:
We're acting independently of the unions. They don't really have much to do with it. If we left it to them everybody would be back at work before you could say Lenin.

Mr. Russell Kerr: Not much in common with you, Ted.

Sir E. Brown: Not much in common with me at all.

Mr. Speaker: Order. This is not an argument below the Gangway between the two sides of the House sitting there. This is a debate in the whole House.

Sir E. Brown: I accept your ruling Mr. Speaker. I speak in this debate with considerable qualifications. I have had 33 years in the trade union movement. I


began on a cycle at the age of 14 as a telegraph boy.
Let me get back to Mr. Lewis and his activities in the building unions. He has said:
We've had to wrest control from the unions and we're going to make sure that the workers all come out, even if we have to physically pull them off the sites one by one.
An investigator employed by the News of the World reported:
Time and again I found it was Lou Lewis to whom pickets turned for advice.
Lewis told the News of the World investigators:
I am a political idealist and merely doing my bit on the great road to universal Socialism.
If right hon. and hon. Members want even more on this subject, let me mention Bert Ramelson, the British Communist Party's National Industrial Organiser. He is Ukrainian by birth. He has said:
One of my tasks is that wherever workers are involved in struggle, the Communist Party as such tries to organise and mobilise solidarity and support.
This includes fostering strikes and strife. Since he took over the Communist industrial machine in 1966, he has encouraged men to strike against both Labour and Conservative industrial policies.
I can even quote the Leader of the Opposition in support of what I say. Commenting upon Communist activities in 1966, he said:
No major strike occurs anywhere in this country in which that apparatus fails to concern itself.
He was there referring to Mr. Ramelson's activities. I have them all—make no bones about that. A News of the World article of 5th November, 1972, says:
A campaign urging miners to seize control of Britain's pits is being waged by Trotskyists who are so revolutionary that they shock even the Communists.
They shock even the left-wing members of the Labour Party. The article continues:
The militants are distributing a flood of militant literature which calls upon the miners to: grab the pits and run them to provide cheap or free coal to the people; institute workers' control of the mining industry and all ancillary trades without further compensation; combat any 'intimidation' during strikes and demonstrations by 'creating mobile defence teams with armed wings'…

There have been some disgraceful scenes during recent picketing. The article says:
Set up: if union branches block militancy. Though only a handful of people are involved at the moment—top Coal Board people regard them as 'insignificant'—there is concern among senior union officials that their numbers will increase.
The article continues:
The calls to action are among 12 programme and policy statements made in The Mineworker, described as the political organ of Mineworkers' Internationale. This is edited by 24-year-old Dave Douglass.
He is known as "Dave the Ripp". He is a coal ripper in the Yorkshire mines. He wrote in his editorial column:
The workers are determined, even with the knowledge that a sell out is likely, to go forward and wreak as much damage as possible on capitalism within the time available. For the pay claim is relatively unimportant.
The House should know that. All too often we hear from the Opposition that industrial action is being taken in respect of pay claims, but it appears that pay claims are not important and that action is taken in an attempt to get British industry under the control of the workers. Neither side of the House would benefit from that.
I could go on to talk about communications, but I will merely read an article in the News of the World of 19th November which says:
Workers in both TV and the Press should be allowed to participate in the selection of news and documentary material.
That sounds awfully nice. But then we must consider the roots of the group. The article says:
The group has its roots in commercial TV—roots that have spread to newspaper union 'chapels' (normal office trade union branches). Among its supporters are Neal Ascherson of The Observer, Roy Bull of the Scotsman, Gus Macdonald of Granada's World in Action and Bryn Jones, industrial writer to the Daily Mirror. Mr. Jones, then father (chairman) of the Daily Mirror chapel, was among the first of the new Fleet Street militants to arouse national newspaper journalists.
A course of action which this House—[Interruption.] It is well worth reading. I could continue quoting example after example which the newspapers have given. I could quote Frank Chapple, who knows exactly what is happening within the electricity undertakings as well as other undertakings. Many hon. Members will know what communist infiltration does to the branches. I spent many


years as chairman of a branch. I was a victim of infiltration from the Communist Party.
The House must face the problem. Industrial democracy is under attack. The infiltrators seek small but powerful positions as shop stewards within our various unions and organisations.
What is the solution. Clearly it is for the union leaders to combat the menace within their own organisations. The Donovan Commission, although not dealing with this aspect of industrial relations, had a recommendation to make at pages 698 and 699. I will read it because it was touched upon this afternoon by the hon. Member for Tottenham who sought the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 9. It says:
The second condition is the revision of union rules on shop stewards. In many rule-books shop stewards, or their counterparts, are mentioned only because the union relies upon them to collect subscriptions. The representative functions of stewards are referred to with surprising infrequency. The rules of the Transport and General Workers' Union and of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, for example, say nothing about such functions. The rules of the Amalgamated Engineering Union leave it to the District Committees to define the powers of shop stewards with the Executive Council's approval 'subject to national agreements.'
I could go on and on. The Commission recommends:
There should be a clear statement as to the authority within the union to which the shop steward is finally responsible and which can in case of need suspend or dismiss him from office.
The Commission recommends at paragraph 4:
The rules should try to give more guidance than is now usual about the action which a steward may take on his own authority or as a result of a meeting of members. This means establishing the relationship between a meeting and the branch. It should be made clear that neither is entitled to take decisions which are at variance with those arising out of factory, company or industry-wide agreements to which the union is party.
It concludes at paragraph 699:
Such rules will make it reasonable to expect stewards (and their members) to act constitutionally, since they will at last be able to perform their functions within the compass of the rules. They will help to create a situation in which trade unions could properly be expected to discipline the small minority of shop stewards who at time abuse their position.

The public are right to demand that these problems be solved eventually by the House if the trade union movement does not do so. The problems are reflected upon the millions of people who are members of the trade union movement. There are 23 million people working in this country and 10 million are registered with the TUC. If only they would attend their branch meetings and cast their vote to elect their officers they would not be landed with the officers they now have. Only 1 per cent. of the 10 million attend branch meetings, and less than 10 per cent. ever take part in any ballot.

Mr. Skinner: rose—

Sir E. Brown: I will give way in a moment. Less than 10 per cent. of them take part in the electoral system within their union or organisation.

Mr. Skinner: In the miners' union, as distinct from some other unions, I agree, there have been many elections since the end of the war, and in almost half of those elections, on an almost universal sufferage, as many as 70 per cent. of the membership took part. Those elections resulted in some representative from Wales or Scotland being elected who was either a member of the Communist Party or a past member. Will the hon. Member consider that if there is a mood in the union membership at any time for such a person to be elected, whatever the participation level, the same thing will happen? It has nothing to do with the numbers of people taking part in the vote. There is plenty of evidence of this in the miners' union in particular but in many other unions as well.

Sir E. Brown: Applying that sort of logic to the House of Commons, one could conclude from what the hon. Gentleman said that elections, whatever the percentage polled, would result in a stalemate from one Government to another. That does not follow. My experience within the trade union movement has been that despite the membership in the factory or organisation—and I had had some 70 members—we never got more than 15 to a branch meeting, try as we might.

Mr. Russell Kerr: I am not surprised.

Sir E. Brown: That may be so. But it is a reflection of the general apathy


throughout the country. It is upon that basis that the test will have to come. If trade union members do not vote, they must not grumble if they get an "ism", either Communism or Fascism. In that case the freedom of the trade union movement is lost forever. If that became the situation we should have lost our freedom.
That is why I am bringing the matter to the House today, in the name of sanity, because it is now more serious. It must not go on. No voice is raised to bring it to the attention of Parliament. There is no controversy about it; we all know the truth about what is happening. There is no difference in knowledge between the two sides of the House. The only difference is that I have got to my feet and said it, whereas hon. Members opposite remain silent.
Let there be no mistake that, at the end of the day, the British public will judge by our attitudes and by what we do. People are thoroughly fed up with what is going on. We are all fed up. If hon. Members opposite have any courage, they will support the motion.

4.12 p.m.

Mr. Stanley Orme: I fail to understand what the speech of the hon. Member for Bath (Sir E. Brown) has been about. He has spoken about a deterioration in industrial relations and asked what the House should do about it. Those of us who took part in the debates on the Industrial Relations Bill in 1970 —we did not see the hon. Gentleman very often on those occasions—

Sir E. Brown: Yes, I was here.

Mr. Orme: We did not.

Sir E. Brown: If the hon. Gentleman checks the Division records, he will see what my attendances in the House were. I was here all the way through.

Mr. Orme: Division records and actually playing a part in debate are two entirely different matters.
The deterioration in industrial relations, in my opinion and the opinion of many of my hon. Friends can be directly related to the Industrial Relations Act. The increase in strikes and industrial strife, and the matters which have now been brought before the Industrial Relations Court, would never before in our history have created major industrial trouble.
It is significant that the hon. Member for Bath did not refer to the dispute now taking place, the dispute which has led to there being no newspapers today and which will lead to industrial stoppages this week, namely, the dispute between the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers and the Industrial Relations Court. The court has told the AUEW that it cannot decide who its own members are, and one "odd bod", so to speak, by the name of Mr. Goad, can create unprecedented industrial unrest. In my opinion, he is out to create mischief in this country, and he has done it, but if the Act had not been on the Statute Book there would have been no chance of that case going to the point of creating such industrial trouble as is now developing.

Mr. John Page: If the union's case is so strong, why did it not argue that case before the judge, according to the law? If its case is so strong, it could well have won it.

Mr. Orme: I concede that, if the union had gone to the court, it could well have made an excellent case. Even newspapers such as the Daily Telegraph have said that Mr. Goad has probably not got a strong case. He has not exhausted the union procedure, a very democratic procedure of appeal, and he has never gone to the membership in that sense. But the union did not go to the court because, in its opinion, the issue is of such importance in its own affairs that it is not prepared to accept the ruling of a court which it does not recognise, a court which is not operating within the terms of normal British law as we have known it in the past but a special court created for industrial relations. One could well call it the court for worsening industrial relations, for that is what has happened.
My union says quite frankly to the House and to the country that while this interference is maintained, and while the endeavour continues to put the free trade union movement in shackles, it is not prepared to concede the point.
A great deal is made of what Mr. Scanlon should or should not do, and what his views are in this respect. I wish to put on record that the decision not to participate in the working of the


court, to adopt a policy of complete non-co-operation, was taken by an overwhelming majority of the 67 lay members of our policy-making body for the four trade unions concerned.

Mr. David Mitchell: rose—

Mr. Orme: No. I am developing an argument. That decision, taken by those 67 members, is binding upon the executives of the four unions and on the general executive. The engineering section executive, of which Mr. Scanlon is the president, and of which there are seven members who reflect distinctive points of view on industrial relations matters on many occasions, has twice considered this issue and has reached the unanimous decision—I mean unanimous, seven votes to nil—that the union may not violate the decision of its rank-and-file policy making body. Mr. Scanlon was not even called upon to vote. That is democracy, is it not?
The hon. Member for Bath talked a lot about democracy and the way in which people get into important positions in the trade union movement, whether by large majorities, with large participation of the membership, or not. Anyone who has taken a keen interest in this matter knows that those of us on this side who have argued these matters before have always advocated the fullest participation by all trade union members in the running of their unions. In fact, there is far more interest and far more active participation than is often acknowledged.
If a union has reached a decision on non-participation, and if then a gentleman such as Mr. Goad makes trouble, should it then change its policy? Mr. Goad has taken a stand on so-called principle. I shall not go into his case. He has been in and out of the union, he worked during an official dispute, and we learned a short time ago that he is so principled that he will settle for £30,000 and leave the industry to get on with its own business. This is the gentleman who is this week causing disruption.
The other people who have created disruption and who are creating disruption still are the Government and, in particular, the former Solicitor-General, now the Minister for Trade and Consumer

Affairs. The right hon. and learned Gentleman is probably responsible for more industrial disputes since 1970 than any trade unionist could ever be said to be.
I address myself now to my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice). I do not think that it behoves him to criticise, or, indeed, to interfere in, the internal democracy of my union in the way he did this weekend, giving succour to the enemies of the trade union movement. My right hon. Friend need only look at some of the Press headlines, from which it would appear that my right hon. Friend supported those people who are now hampering the British trade union movement. I know that is not his intention. He has been put into that position by his statements and utterances. It is not consistent with the manner and policy of the Labour Party. Looking at conference decisions, I do not believe the Parliamentary Labour Party has even discussed this matter. Individual Members, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) and the hon. Member for East Ham, North say different things. Different people make policy statements on behalf of the Party. This subject is of major importance.
I say that in no form of personal animosity. I have never had a personal word with my right hon. Friend about this. His actions and statements on the BBC yesterday will have dismayed tens of thousands of members who were preparing to take action to defend the AEWU. My union's life is at stake. It is preparing to fight for that life. I support the actions of my union. I know there can be two points of view about this matter. There can be difficulties.

Mr. David Mitchell: On a point of order. The hon. Gentleman is making declarations in great detail about certain matters to which most hon. Members in this House are not privy. Could we be told what was said by the hon. Member which is now being attacked?

Mr. Speaker: No matter of order arises.

Mr. Orme: I am referring to the statement made by my right hon. Friend concerning the AEWU dispute on the "World at One" yesterday lunchtime.


Those of us who follow industrial affairs know what is going on. The hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mr. David Mitchell) obviously does not. This is a serious matter, about which we feel deeply concerned. We in this country are undergoing a traumatic experience with regard to industrial relations. Those of us who work for better industrial relations, and who argued the case throughout the consideration of the Industrial Relations Bill must pose the issues because they are of fundamental importance to the Labour and trade union movements.

Mr. Reg Prentice: I shall make some comment later on what the hon. Member said. But will he acknowledge one point? In my position as spokesman for the party on employment it would be inappropriate and cowardly if I made no public reference and refused to answer questions publicly on this matter.
Would my hon. Friend the Member for Salford, West (Mr. Stanley Orme) further acknowledge, when he speaks of his union's fight, that his union is taking an attitude in this case in relation to the court which is different from that of most other unions and of the TUC? There is more than one direction in which trade union loyalty points on an issue on this kind.

Mr. Orme: I would not accuse my right hon. Friend of not having the courage to state his convictions. He has done that on a number of occasions. I hope he feels it justifiable for me to put the opposite point of view, though it be in public, because the matter is of such importance.
I recognise the second point made by the right hon. Member, namely the difference between the policy of my union and that of the TUC. That is a fair point to make. My union decided, without going to the TUC, to take this stand alone. They have supported other similar actions. They recognise that the subject of industrial relations in this country is serious. But there is a new feeling in the trade union movement of workers' participation. It is not a question of a trade union leader dictating policy to the trade union membership. The AEWU leadership has not instructed its membership. It has asked its membership what action it is prepared to take in this regard.
It is against that serious background of industrial relations that we have had unrest since 1970 and the doubling of strikes. Picketing was not even an issue in the industrial relations field before 1970. During the passage of the Bill we challenged the then Secretary of State for Employment, now the Home Secretary, to produce evidence of violence on the picket lines which could be used as evidence during that debate. The Minister was not able to produce it. The Bill makes every major issue a political one. The issues are no longer industrial but have become political.
The minor issue concerning Mr. Goad, which would otherwise have been dealt with in a manner satisfactory to the union and Mr. Goad, could have been resolved without effort. The issue concerning that gentleman has now caused the cessation of the publication of newspapers and has created trouble in the docks and in the engineering industry. By that sort of action an individual who wishes can create trouble.
The test of the situation is how major employers have been affected by the Industrial Relations Act. How many major employers have been to the Industrial Relations Court since the Act came into being? Nobody can name one. How often have we heard about the implementation of an agency shop?

Mr. Norman Atkinson: Vestey was one.

Mr. Orme: That was a subsidiary company. No major employer in general industry has been to the Industrial Relations Court.
The AEWU has been able to reform the agreement with the engineering employers. That action has been taken by means of free collective bargaining. There is no other way.
In our society there is free collective bargaining, where the employers and trade unions can operate. The Industrial Relations Act is the cause of the trouble. When there is such an Act the trade unions are put into a legal strait-jacket. The situation will continue with cases such as those of the five Pentonville dockers and Mr. Goad. Nobody knows what will happen tomorrow. This does not help the country's economy. It does not assist the trade union movement. It


is changing the industrial relations atmosphere.
I accept that there is an important issue here. We live in a mixed economy where the profit motive operates but where a strong trade union movement is in a position to bargain and negotiate with the employers. That situation will continue. The Industrial Relations Act sets out to soften, divert, diminish the authority of the trade union movement. But it has not succeeded. It has shattered industrial relations which some trades unions have built up over a generation.
People such as Hugh Scanlon and Jack Jones are noted for their word. They keep to an agreement when it is made. Nobody can point to any agreement which Mr. Jones or Mr. Scanlon has ever advocated that their members should break. When members have broken agreements Mr. Scanlon and Mr. Jones have been the first to uphold them. That goes for most trade union leaders who live in a real industrial world, where one has to strike bargains by means of free collective bargaining. We heard claptrap in today's opening speech. If the best the hon. Member can do is to read extracts from the News of the World, words fail me. Yet the hon. Lady the Member for Keighley (Miss Joan Hall) said it was an excellent speech.
I should like to warn Parliament that unless something is done about the Industrial Relations Act the situation will worsen, not get better. The case of Mr. Goad has arisen almost by accident, not by design. This sort of situation will continue to develop, and it will bedevil industrial relations. It is for that reason that many of us on this side of the House oppose the motion and the hypocrisy with which it was moved.

4.30 p.m.

Sir Frederick Bennett: Before coming to the substance of my speech, I want to comment on the speech made by the hon. Member for Salford, West (Mr. Orme). He complained that the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Sir E. Brown) did not meet his favour and was a lot of claptrap, partly because my hon. Friend quoted a number of facts from a newspaper. That was an odd comment. As soon as my hon. Friend rose, he was challenged on the

basis, "Do not offer generalities—give names". My hon. Friend thereupon proceeded to give names and is now accused of having resorted to the authority he found for giving those names.

Mr. Russell Kerr: The News of the World?

Sir F. Bennett: It would not be the first time that right hon. and hon. Members on both sides have used newspapers as the source of information they convey to the House—and that includes no less a person than the Leader of the Opposition, who is only too pleased to search through newspaper columns for anything which matches his mood of the moment.
One half of the speech of the hon. Member for Salford, West was about something that is a secret from the rest of us. I hope that the right hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice) will let us into the secret of what he is supposed to have done wrong. It is not necessarily the case that the fact that one misses a particular broadcast during a weekend shows that one is not interested in industrial relations. But I have sufficient confidence in the right hon. Gentleman—I hope that it will not cause him embarrassment—to know that what he said, whether the hon. Member for Salford, West agrees or not, would be based on commonsense.
I am not one of those who believe that it matters whether Mr. Goad is a brave or a pitiable man or any other sort of man. But it is important to refute what the hon. Member for Salford, West said —that it is because of Mr. Goad that we are seeing these strikes. We are seeing these strikes because leading trade unions have refused to go before the National Industrial Relations Court. They are taking that attitude, and have always done so, quite regardless of Goad or no Goad—a fine or brave man or anyone else. They are simply not prepared to submit to the jurisdiction of the court and it is because of that that we are having these strikes. To drag in Mr. Goad's name, good, bad or indifferent, is irrelevant.
The other half of the speech of the hon. Member for Salford, West was strong on the subject of motivation. I listened to it with great interest. But the motion deals with a trend which was developing in this country long before the


Industrial Relations Act came into force. There has been a challenge that one Member or another on this side of the House did not take a significant part in the proceedings of that Act. I frankly admit that I did not. I supported the Government, but I do not mind saying—I said this outside as well—that from the start I was doubtful whether the measures would succeed in what it was intended to achieve because I did not feel that there were sufficient reserve practical powers in the State to be able to deal with the exacerbation that the Act would cause amongst certain types of trade unionists. Yet to say that the Act has anything to do with today's motion is simply a diversion.
I wish to quote a number of statements relating to the central point of this motion to show, whether hon. Members opposite believe it or not, that it has nothing to do with an attack on trade unionism or trade unionists. I cannot imagine a modern community without trade unions playing a useful and effective role. What we are complaining about is not the existence of trade unions but the abuse of trade unionism by small minorities.
I will quote one or two comments to illustrate what is behind the motion. One is by my hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence. He said:
There are a few—not very many but a few—in industry today whose political ideologies require them to take such action as they can to impede and destroy our industrial progress, who take advantage of the well meaning, who disguise their motives by a pretence of loyalty to one or other section of the community, whose purpose is to create chaos so that our system of society should be changed. One should not be deceived by the smallness of their number. One should read one's history and find that a small number of determined people can accomplish a very great deal.
My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said:
There are active in our society small but virulent minorities who would like to see the whole present structure of our society destroyed and who believe that economic failure is the best way to bring it about.
It is fair to say, following the speech of the hon. Member for Salford, West, that these two speeches were made subsequent to the Act.
As I have said, what we are dealing with is a trend which has been steadily

building up over the last 15 years or so. In June 1966, years before even the Labour alternative to the Industrial Relations Act was brought into the open, the then Prime Minister made statements which is is worth quoting and putting again on record because they were made by the Opposition when they had the responsibility of office. Before the passing of the Industrial Relations Act, which we are told now is the basis of the whole problem, the present Leader of the Opposition said:
It is difficult for us to appreciate the pressures which are being put on men I know to be realistic and reasonable, not only in their executive capacity but in the highly organised strike committees in the individual ports, by this tightly knit group of politically motivated men who, as the last General Election showed, utterly failed to secure acceptance of their views by the British electorate, but who are now determined to exercise backstage pressures, forcing great hardship on the members of the union and their families, and endangering the security of the industry and the economic welfare of the nation."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th June 1966; Vol. 730, c. 43.]
When the right hon. Gentleman was challenged by outraged so-called supporters from his own side, he promised to come back a week later and give further details. He did so and said:
The House will be aware that the Communist Party, unlike the major political parties, has at its disposal an efficient and disciplined industrial apparatus controlled from Communist Party headquarters. No major strike occurs anywhere in this country in any sector of industry in which that apparatus fails to concern itself."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 28th June 1966; Vol. 730, c. 1613.]
He went on to give a number of names of individuals—I will not trouble the House with them unless requested—who were, he said, intimately concerned with determined militancy in the trade union movement in relation to the seamen's strike.
So far so good. That was back in June 1966. It is only a few weeks ago that the head chameleon of the Labour Party, when he was referring to the possibility of Communists in the trade unions having an effect on industrial relations, made a most bitter attack on my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Selwyn Gummer), who is currently one of the vice-chairmen of the Conservative Party and who had made a speech whose virulence and strength in regard to the effect of the Communist Party was


milk and water compared with what the Leader of the Opposition said in 1966.

Mr. Eric S. Heffer: As well as quoting what my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition said in 1966, perhaps the hon. Gentleman would quote some of the speeches made by Labour Members at that time, including myself, in relation to the arguments put by my right hon. Friend, which were regarded then as being as silly as the arguments being used at the present moment.

Sir F. Bennett: I am grateful for the additional evidence that I have just received showing that the Leader of the Opposition had the guts to make the statement and had to come back to the House a week later with further details because of the outrage he had caused to what I call his so-called supporters. With grateful thanks I now include the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) in that group—to satisfy him.
Much as I should appreciate the opportunity, it is not my job to refer to speeches from every right hon. and hon. Gentleman opposite who has diverted from his party leadership during the past 10 years. If I did, I should still be speaking at least two and a half days from now.
I return to the quotations from not only Conservative but responsible trade union and Labour Party sources, any one of which would have supported the motion we are debating. For I do not believe that the hon. Member for Walton would go so far as to suggest that the Leader of the Opposition is anti-trade union. However, we have the case of Mr. Frank Chappell, a former Communist President of the Electrical Trade Union, who said:
Working for the Communist Party is like being part of a ruthless industrial and political Kray Brothers organisation. It is like a religion run by gangsters. They work on a simple policy. Their task is to wriggle their way up from the shop floor to decision-making positions in key industries.
That would be strong stuff even for a Member of the Monday Club, let alone a prominent Labour supporter.
I continue with a quotation from Mr. Ray Gunter—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]

If a groan is to greet every instance to which I refer when someone has varied from the official Labour Party policy on certain matters, there should be a fair number of further vacancies on the Opposition benches, including the hon. Member for Walton.
Only a few days ago Mr. Ray Gunter said:
I think there is a very grave threat indeed. There are today many factions bent on destroying the free society we think is ours.

Mr. Heffer: Where did he speak?

Sir F. Bennett: I do not know, but if I discover subsequently I will write to the hon. Gentleman.
I hope that there will be some extra groans ready because I am about to refer to the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley). Groans please? May we have some groans? The right hon. Gentleman said:
The tragedy of recent events is that ordinary decent men have been encouraged to believe that the wreckers, a tiny proportion of the total union membership, speak for their interests in combating Government policy.
No groans!
I now turn to Mr. Bob Dark, a former Communist, who said something very interesting:
It is never necessary for the party to have overwhelming numbers in a factory to bring it into line. I know a factory where some 2,000 workers were employed. Of its 12 shop stewards, six were Communists and there was a fraction of 30 party members among the workers. The secret, of course, lay with the six shop stewards. The party only controlled one in every 60 of the workers, but controlled half of the shop stewards.
Finally, in this category—not of Conservatives—of people who would have supported the motion were they here today, but including, if he were honest, the Leader of the Opposition in view of his comments which I have just read, I refer to the late Lord Carron, a very responsible and respected member of the Labour Party. I bring in this quotation because I expected one retort today would be that all this trouble came about because of the Industrial Relations Act. On the contrary, I have said that this trouble began at least as early as 1955. I will come to the history later. Long before anyone had thought about the


Industrial Relations Act, Lord Carron, then President of the AEU, said:
Surely it does not require a genius to see the linkage between events divorced in geographical location but identical in nature and expression, The docks, building sites, and other spheres of activity all bear the same stamp and have the same origin.
That was not bad from someone speaking 17 years ago, and it can hardly be attributed to the passing of the Industrial Relations Act.
The point of the motion is to indicate, I repeat, not an attack on the trade unions, but, on the contrary, an attempt to try to show to them and to their rank and file membership how they are being duped and in what dangerous paths they are being led.
So far as one can trace from reading post-war history regarding the Communist movement in this country, there is no doubt that in the first flush of our ending the war as allies of the Soviet Union there was a considerable feeling of sympathy for and kinship with our great Communist ally. This showed itself in the comparative success in parliamentary and municipal elections in a period when, for a very short time, it looked as though there was at least a chance that Communism would be able to gain some strength in this country through the ordinary use of the polls whether at national or municipal level.
The Soviet Union then began to show its true self. We had the ruthless occupation of the Baltic States and the inclusion by force of all the satellite states of Eastern and Central Europe within its empire. We then had the first real cold douche to Communist fellow traveller sympathisers in this country—the savagery of the rape of Hungary. At that moment, tracing the poll figures, we see that Communism through the ballot box rapidly started to lose its appeal, which in any case from the start had been only minimal.
If anything else were needed to make sure that Communism would never reach a significant situation in either this House or local councils, it came finally as recently as the events in Czechoslovakia.

Mr. John Prescott: What about Suez?

Sir F. Bennett: There is no comparison. If the hon. Gentleman wants to

drag in Suez, I suggest that he puts his name down for the ballot, as I did, and trusts his luck to getting it drawn out as a subject for debate.
Continuing this theme, in the 1950s the Communists started to alter their whole technique in this country. They began to realise that there were two ways forward if they wanted to increase their influence here. One was by their support of bogus organisations and associations with high-sounding and high-falutin' names, more of which have been proscribed by the Labour Party.
The second and more significant was their realisation that the trade unions in this country offered a splendid area for the accretion of power for one very good reason which in many ways is a credit to our people. The average trade unionist in this country, when he has finished his day's work, wants to go home, listen to the radio, watch television, go to a football match, or anything else he fancies. The electorates, therefore, among such a body of men are nearly always limited—although there are exceptions—to small groups of politically motivated men who are prepared to manipulate the voting machine in a manner which would be unthinkable were they to try it at the ordinary polls.
Faced with the decline of the Communist Party in electoral terms, and before its full strength had been shown in the trade union movement, there were two occasions in the House that I can remember when Labour leaders of great distinction—first Lord Attlee and then Mr. Gaitskell—decided that the moment was ripe to cleanse their party of the infiltrators from the extreme left who were giving the Labour Party a bad name. There is not one hon. Gentleman opposite who does not know that what I am saying is true. One can remember as a result of the attempts by Lord Attlee, the disappearance from the House, because they failed to get support at elections as Labour Party candidates, of three or four members who, it was decided —by the Labour Party, not by us—were guilty of some form of subordination to Communist influences.
The second major cleansing operation was in 1961 under Mr. Gaitskell when a decision was taken that a further effort was needed to try to root out members of the Labour Party who, apart from any


other considerations, were damaging the Labour Party's electoral good name. It was found at that time—and I say this advisedly to show how far the rot had set in—that the chief press and publicity officer of the Labour Party as a whole—he had held that post for 16 years—was not only a Communist sympathiser but was a paid agent of the Soviet Union, and that over a period of four years had been receiving sums varying up to £120 at a time from one of the satellite states.
If hon. Gentlemen opposite want me to do so, I am prepared to give his name but I suspect that they may know enough about the person to whom I am referring not to press me to do so.

Mr. Prescott: Be brave.

Sir F. Bennett: I am only too delighted to give his name—Mr. Arthur Bax.
It would be nice to know that while all those reverses were going on at the political level the Communists and their sympathisers within the trade union movement had suffered similar reverses, but unfortunately that is not true. The position today is that in the TUC itself, about whose wisdom and balance as a whole none of us would be foolish enough to argue or dispute, at least three members have strong present or past extreme left affiliations.
It is also the fact that today 25 of the 42 people on the National Executive of the Communist Party of Great Britain are active trade unionists, and 15 of them are leading ones. If I am again told to be brave it will take a long time to read out the names of the 15 or more people involved. Perhaps it might nevertheless be worth reading them so that when their names next crop up in the headlines connected with a strike not only we in this House but the duped workers themselves may recognise some of them.
Those concerned are: Mr. David Bellman, Mr. Les Burt, Mr. Richard Etheridge.

Mrs. Elaine Kellett-Bowman: I wonder whether my hon. Friend would give the names of the unions concerned. That might be of assistance.

Sir F. Bennett: Yes, certainly. They are: Mr. David Bowman, a member of

the National Union of Railwaymen; Mr. Les Burt, a member of the Electrical Trades Union, Mr. Richard Etheridge, a member of the Associated Engineering Union, a frequent AUEW delegate to the annual conference of USDAW and, incidentally, in another rôle, the political circulation organiser of the Daily Worker; Mr. Ramelson, a member of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, and the national industrial organiser of the Communist Party; the Birmingham city secretary, Mr. William Dunn, a member of the AUEW, the national election agent and member of the T & GWU, Mr. Reuben Felder; the Lancashire district secretary of the Associated Society of Woodworkers, Mr. Sidney Foster; the Yorkshire district secretary of the Clerical and Administrative Workers Union, Mr. Howard Hill; to show that the fair sex is not missing there is the national women's organiser Mrs. Margaret Annie Hunter, a member of ASTMS; Mrs. Nora Jeffrey who is still an active member of the Communist Party and a member of the Clerical and Administrative Workers Union; Mr. Frank Foley, the branch secretary of the Associated Society of Woodworkers; Mr. Jock Glenn, a member of the AUEW; Mr. James Hagan. a member of the National Union of Sheet Metal Workers and Coppersmiths; Mr. Daniel Lyons, a member of the T & GWU and a docker; Mr. Michael McKee, a miner and vice-president of the Scottish area of the NUM; Mr. Cyril Morden, a member of the AUEW; Mr. Page—not my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West (Mr. John Page), but Wilfred—the branch chairman of the National Union of Agricuitural and Allied Workers; Mrs. Irene Swann, a member of the National Union of Public Employees; another miner, Mr. Samuel Taylor, who is a member and official of the Yorkshire area of the NUM; Mr. Tocher of the AUEW, a full-time district secretary; Mr. Arthur Trew a member of the AUEW; and, finally, Mr. Hugh Wyper of the National Union of Sheet Metal Workers and Coppersmiths.
All those ladies and gentlemen have confessed to their Communist allegiance and are prominent members of trade unions. They are also members of the top executive of the Communist Party Executive of Great Britain.

Mr. Richard Buchanan: The first name which the hon. Gentleman read out was that of Mr. David Bellman who, he said, is a member of the NUR. If he is a member of the Communist Party he must have joined within the last 24 hours. As that was the first name read out by the hon. Gentleman I hope that the rest of his information is more accurate.

Sir F. Bennett: If I have wrongly attributed any name—

Mr. Heffer: You have.

Sir F. Bennett: It is no use the hon. Gentleman saying "You have". If I have said that someone is a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain and he is not, I shall willingly write and apologise not only to him but to the hon. Member for Glasgow, Springburn (Mr. Buchanan).
As I have said, out of the 42 Members of the National Executive of the Communist Party of Great Britain, 25 are members of trade unions, 15 at least of them being leading members. We have already heard about Mr. Lou Lewis, who played a notable part during the building strike. I ask Labour hon. Members who doubt the validity of what we say about this matter to read a book called "Violence and Intimidation", a dossier of examples of personal violence, injury, arson and damage during this year's building strike. [Interruption.] It was not compiled by the Economic League but by the National Federation of Building Trades Employers. Almost all the names given in it of those who stated that they suffered from intimidation are of workers or union officials, or the statements are by police or Press observers. The statements are in the main not employers' comments but those of people who suffered or witnessed the violence and intimidation. Grumbling Labour Members who read the book will find there statements by their so-called fellow workers.
It can fairly be said that if it is the wish of rank and file trade unionists to vote Labour, Conservative or Liberal at the polls, and to vote Communist or pro-Communist when they choose their trade union leaders, they have every right to

do so in a free society, odd though the choice may be. But what is not fair or reasonable is that men should be elected under false pretences to high office in the trade unions, many of them wielding far more influence than any individual hon. Member on either side does. Yet the constant claim of those with strong Communist affiliations who stand for high office in the trade unions do not declare themselves in the same way as when they stand openly supporting Communist aims. At Trade Union elections they say only that they are standing to support the workers' interests. If that is true, it must be a very odd electorate.
What would be said if it could be shown that any hon. Member had been elected on a 9·7 per cent. poll and yet claimed to be responsible for and to represent the whole body of a constituency? Such a person would be derided. In the case of Mr. Scanlon, to whom I am referring, one of the first things this democratic gentleman did when he was elected was to see that the rules were changed—

Mr. Skinner: What about Campbell Adamson?

Sir F. Bennett: I shall give way if the Gentleman wishes.
When Mr. Scanlon, that democratic gentleman, had been elected on a 9·7 per cent. poll, one of the first things he did was to alter the rules so that he would not need to stand for election again. So far as I know, that is the only example of a life-president in this country, a position normally preserved for some of the more repressive areas of Africa. What wonderful company to keep—Hugh Scanlon, Kwame Nkrumah and the rest!

Mr. Orme: The hon. Gentleman is now revealing his true self. Moreover, he is falsifying the facts, which is a serious matter. Mr. Scanlon has been the elected president of the AUEW for 10 or 12 years. About two years ago the rules revision committee of the union, which comprises 52 rank and file members, altered the union's rules, not at Mr. Scanlon's behest, in a way that allowed people with only seven years' service left not to have to contest another election. That applied to Mr. Scanlon, Mr. Conway and other national officers.
The hon. Gentleman made a point about a 9·7 per cent. poll. Many of us have said that we want more members to vote in union elections. But there are some hon. Members who have been returned at by-elections on percentage polls of less than 40. Therefore, we must look at the general picture, and not just one incident.

Sir F. Bennett: I have nothing to withdraw. I said that the rules had been so altered—

Mr. Orme: The hon. Gentlman said that Mr. Scanlon did it.

Sir F. Bennett: Anyone who imagines that Mr. Scanlon had nothing to do with it, or that he was not consulted on a decision that led to his remaining in office for a great deal longer than any hon. Member could without an election, needs to have his head tested.

Mr. Heffer: The hon. Gentleman does.

Sir F. Bennett: I withdraw nothing.
As regards the 9·7 per cent. poll, the most that the hon. Gentleman could do was to speak of Members who came here on a poll of under 40 per cent. It was precisely because 9·7 per cent. was so startling a figure compared with anything else that I raised the matter. I did not raise the election of Mr. Jack Jones in a 20 per cent. poll, which is still a great deal less than the 40 per cent. to which the hon. Gentleman referred. Therefore, I have nothing to change in my statement that Mr. Scanlon was elected to hold a position of power in a way that would have been totally unacceptable for any hon. Member on either side, and to wield very much more power.
We could adduce a great deal more evidence to show the way in which a small minority of ruthless men are trying to interfere with the industrial well-being of the country. Except for a handful of Labour Members who are too blind, do not want to see or have some other reason for not seeing, every Opposition Member knows that what I have said is absolutely true. If I am wrong and have made wrong statements, not one of those statements has been more severe than their own party leader made only a few short years ago.

Mr. Prescott: And he was wrong.

Sir F. Bennett: I was delighted—

Mr. Prescott: rose—

Sir F. Bennett: I am not giving way. I am aware that some of the Leader of the Opposition's colleagues think that he was as wrong as they think I am, but that is a matter for them to deal with in their own internal battles. I find the difference of opinion rather odd, because a couple of days ago I read a speech by the Leader of the Opposition in which he said that he was happy to announce that the Labour Party was now totally united. Perhaps Labour Members had better have another meeting upstairs on Wednesday evening to resolve the matter. [Interruption.] I am glad to have more and more secrets given to me today.
In this country political sabotage and subversion by a small but evil minority of dedicated men who support the Communist Party and allied extreme Left parties are increasing, and promise to go on increasing unless checked. They are Communist or near-Communist dominated and controlled despite the variety of titles they adopt in pursuit of them. Their effect on the economy has passed beyond the serious stage.
In the result, the rôle of the trade unions—this at least should strike a chord with some Labour Members—has been reduced to a secondary one, as has their power to negotiate with employers. If Opposition Members think that I am wrong in that, I wish they could have listened to some of the private conversations I have had with leading trade unionists in the past few days, since my motion appeared on the Order Paper—[Interruption.]—I do not know why the hon. Gentleman keeps on talking about the Bahamas. [An HON. MEMBER: "Or Torquay."]—I do not spend all my time even there. I occasionally come to London. I am here today for this debate.
Even more important, whether hon. Members opposite like it or not, the rank and file worker on the site and in the factory is totally unaware of what is overtaking him. If he is aware, as was the case in the building dispute, he has been too afraid to do anything about it on his own for fear of reprisal.
These political subversionists are adequately financed and very well disciplined,


organised and co-ordinated. This, together with their fanatical ruthlessness, is where their real strength lies.
Faced with these facts, which no one can deny unless he has some strange reason for wanting to deny them, what can the House and the country do? The newspapers have given a lead. There is one specific thing the Government can do. After the appalling examples of the abuse of picketing which occurred in several disputes, I want the Government quickly to conclude their review of the law of picketing to ensure, first, that in future it is adequately and fully enforced, and if necessary it will have to be reinforced and the law will have to be strengthened.
In the last resort it lies in the hands of all of us how much we can get over to the country the message that a great movement is being perverted and subverted by this small minority of men to whom we have made repeated reference. A number of newspapers have already given a lead. It is up to the House and many others to follow that lead and to bring the truth home to all of us and not just some of us.

5.12 p.m.

Mr. Eric S. Heffer: There are about 800,000 workers unemployed. There are cities with great social problems where people are crying out for housing and children are still taught in out-of-date, backward schools. Yet, knowing of these immense problems which need to be tackled, the best that hon. Members opposite can do is to come up with this witch-hunting McCarthyite-type Motion That is my strongest condemnation of hon. Members opposite.
When I joined the trade union movement as an apprentice I was told by certain newspapers that all strikes, all industrial problems and all the issues about which workers were concerned, were in reality the fault of members of the Communist Party or of subversive elements who were only there to stir up trouble. Since the Russian Revolution, and even before it, there have been people in Britain who have had what I might call the conspiracy theory of trade unionism, as though all the issues that involve workers in industrial disputes were purely the responsibility of small groups of subversive people. It is not true. It never has been true.

Sir F. Bennett: Rubbish.

Mr. Heffer: It never will be true. Industrial conflict in Britain, as in every other capitalist country, arises from the very nature of the system of society in which we live. Employers want to make the maximum amount of profit. Workers want to sell their labour for the highest amount of money they can get. Thus there is a conflict of interest between workers and employers. As long as that situation exists there will inevitably be conflict between the two groups.
I will tell hon. Members opposite something about the nature of the Communist Party. Hon. Members opposite are all experts on the Communist Party. They all know about its stirring up trouble. Immediately after the war the British Communist Party's line was, "We ought not to have a Labour Government. We should have a National Government to include progressive Tories like Mr. Winston Churchill and Mr. Eden." Part of the British Communist Party's argument was that we should export or die and therefore the workers should not become involved in industrial conflict.
Between 1945 and 1948, when the line was changed by the Cominform, Communist shop stewards tried to head off British workers from fighting for their rights in industry. When the workers in Liverpool went on strike in the shipping industry in 1947, the British Communist Party tried to stop the dispute.
The assertion that Communists are always trying to stir up trouble in industry is not borne out by the historical facts. I would not expect hon. Members opposite to know what those of us know who are based in the trade union movement and who understand its history. Hon. Members opposite get it only from the East-West Digest or from some other such document issued by Aims of Industry or the Economic League.
It has been suggested that the Communists are today the great revolutionary force. In fact, in the eyes of most young people of the Left the Communist Party is composed of the most old-fashioned bunch of fuddy-duddies one could find. There are organisations called the Socialist Labour League and the International Marxist Group. Hon. Members should read the multifarious documents


which are published. I cannot keep up with them. They spring up overnight.
Communist Party shop stewards tend nowadays to be the most conservative ones. Most of our lads in the Labour Party are much more to the Left in the industrial struggle. Hon. Members should get up to date and learn something about what goes on in industry.
I come to the question of why Communists are sometimes elected to trade union office. My union used to have a district secretary who was elected every year. Regrettably, we changed our system. In those days district officers and members of the management committee were elected annually. There was a man on Merseyside of Catholic origin known as Leo McGree. Leo was elected every year with the biggest vote. In the branch of which I was chairman I used to ask for nominations for district secretary every year and one man, a member of the Roman Catholic Church and a member of the Labour Party, would immediately nominate Leo McGree. I once went to this chap and I said, "I don't understand this. You are a Catholic, you are a member of the Labour Party. You always nominate Leo McGree. Why?" He replied, "Because he is the best trade union official I know." He got the votes in my union because he was considered to be the best trade union official.
When he stood in the General Election for the Communist Party it was possible to count on one hand the votes he received. Politically, the people did not want him, but he was certainly wanted as an industrial organiser in my union. Go to any building trade employer in Liverpool and he will tell you that when Leo McGree was the district secretary and when he gave his word about an agreement, that agreement was never broken. Let us get this matter into a proper perspective.
Hon. Members opposite are trying to create a McCarthyite witch-hunt atmosphere. That is something we do not want in this country. It is designed to deflect us as a people from what is causing industrial unrest. The basic reason why we have a dispute in the newspapers, why whole sections of industry are closed down over wage deals, is the stupidity of the Government in introducing the Indus-

trial Relations Act. The Government cannot say they were not warned. We warned them every day when the Act was going through this House. We said it would not make any contribution towards solving industrial relations problems. In an atmosphere like this, Left-wing groups will always be ready to pounce and become involved. A person in a factory might have been saying, "We ought to go on strike" for years, but no one will take the slightest notice of him until this sort of atmosphere arises.

Sir F. Bennett: If what the hon. Gentleman is saying is correct, will he spend a minute or two telling us why his own party leaders spent so much of their energies condemning, in almost the same terms that I have used, the activities of the Communist Party among trade unions —long before the passing of the Industrial Relations Act?

Mr. Heffer: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the speeches which I and my hon. Friend the Member for Salford, West (Mr. Orme) made in the House during that period. We are not saying anything different now. A number of trade union leaders have been quoted. My right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice) made some comments yesterday. If anyone does not know what he said he ought to get a copy of the Glasgow Herald. It is clearly set out there. Jim Conway is known to be on the right wing of our movement. He is the General Secretary of the AUEW. I want to quote what he wrote in this month's editorial of the AUEW Journal. He said:
I have made mention that sooner or later we would find ourselves in practical opposition to the NIRC. The time has now come. Our policy as determined by National Conference and National Committee is quite clear. We are opposed to the Industrial Relations Act and all the legalistic adjuncts of that Act. It has been determined by National Conference that our opposition will be expressed in non-recognition and non-co-operation. This is not the individual choice of officers; it is the collective decision of the membership and as such will be obeyed.
Our firm and unequivocal stand will result in our being criticised but much of the criticism will come from those who oppose our very existence and it is unlikely to give rise to much concern amongst members. Our opposition to the Act is based on considered judgment and not on short-term expediency … We must fight and express our opposition to the Act at all levels. To say that we have a duty to


obey a vicious piece of legislation when it becomes law is to take all reasoning away from the belief of democracy and law itself.
I hope that my right hon. Friend will take note of that speech.
We ought not even to be giving the impression that any workers involved in fighting this law are wrong. What we should be doing is what I attempted to do on Friday—to spell out the alternatives, to say that we will not only repeal the Act but that we will deal with a number of things which need action.

Mrs. Jill Knight: rose—

Mr. Heffer: When the hon. Lady knows something about industrial relations I will give way. I am not being charitable just because the hon. Lady is a lady. I will not give way.

Mrs. Knight: The hon. Gentleman is not being charitable.

Mr. Heffer: If the hon. Lady sits down I will continue my speech. I said on Friday that the time has come to repeal the Industrial Relations Act. The Government should withdraw the Act and reverse their policy as they have reversed it on just about everything else, as they have reversed their policy on issue after issue. If they have any sense they will reverse their policy on this Act.
We have to set out the alternatives. I said on Friday that we would support the idea of a conciliation service that would be non-governmental, along the lines of the TUC-CBI agreement reached in August. We would introduce legislation to restore to trade unions the rights destroyed after the passing of the Act. We could then introduced a number of short Bills restoring the Commission on Industrial Relations to its rôle as an investigatory body making joint references and recommendations to both sides of industry.
We would introduce a Bill to improve safety and welfare and create an industrial health service. The recommendations in the Robens Report which proposed new legislation on safety should be adopted and improved. I believe that every shipyard and factory should have an elected safety committee with a safety officer whose task it would be to ensure that the safety laws were strictly adhered to. Shop stewards should be protected

by law and trade unions should be recognised by law. That is the sort of thing we should be doing with industrial relations.
These are the issues, the essence of industrial relations, not the rubbish and banter we have heard from Conservative Members. If hon. Gentlemen want to play their part in diminishing class conflict in industry, let them carry through most of the proposals in Donovan, which are the very opposite to what is contained in the Industrial Relations Act. They should put them into operation. On that basis hon. Members opposite would be making a genuine contribution to good industrial relations instead of uttering the rubbish we have heard this afternoon.

5.30 p.m.

Mr. David Mitchell: Perhaps we may remind ourselves that the motion we are debating condemns
a small minority of extremist, politically-motivated militants within the trade union movement".
As I sat listening to the historical meanderings which the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) made through the history of the trade union movement in Liverpool it seemed to me that they bore little resemblance to the motion.
I came to this Chamber today expecting to find hon. Members opposite supporting the motion. I had expected many of them to be supporting it with enthusiasm. This is a curious time for the Opposition, when they find themselves having lost their deposit at Sutton and Cheam, when they find themselves having been unable to capture Uxbridge at the byelection as everybody expected them to do, when they find that they have lost one of their own seats to the Liberal Party. It is an almost unheard thing for an Opposition midway through a Parliament to fail in this way. Everybody knows that the main reason why this is so is the guilt by association from which hon Members in the Labour Party and candidates of the Labour Party suffer because of the extremist minority within the trade union movement. I can well understand the embarrassing position in which the right hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice), for whom I have considerable respect, finds himself.
The lion. Member for Salford, West (Mr. Orme) just now referred to the


present industrial dispute and the strike which is taking place, and told us that the decision—which is a decision to ignore the law—was taken by 67 lay delegates, and that far more people take part than many other people give credit for in the decision-making of the AEF. What also ought to be recorded is that under 10 per cent. of the membership of his union took part in the vote when Hugh Scanlon was elected president, and that considerably fewer took part in the vote which put into office the present Communist extremist group who dominate the executive of that union.
I want to stress that we are concerned with a minority. We are not concerned with the majority of good, sound, sensible trade unionists in the country who are as disgusted by the behaviour of this minority as, I am sure, is the right hon. Member for East Ham, North, whose broadcast on the subject has been referred to.

Mr. James Hamilton: Will the hon. Member give way?

Mr. Mitchell: No. I am sorry, but I am under considerable pressure of time, and some of the speeches have been rather long, and I am anxious that mine should be rather shorter.
I am going to make three points as briefly as I can. I want to look at three types of extremist active in the country at present. Firstly those who choose to ignore the law of the land. Secondly there are those involved in assault and similar criminal activities. Third, there are those who egg them on and give them moral support.
Today there are trade union leaders who refuse to recognise the Industrial Relations Court. They think that they are continuing the fight against the Industrial Relations Bill, but, as every hon. Member of the House knows, it is no longer a Bill but the law of the land, and, as such, all of us are bound to obey it, whether we like it or not. This was very well summed up in the cartoon in the Sunday Express yesterday. It put it very forcefully. It shows Mr. Scanlon coming out of a meeting to find that somebody is driving away his car, and somebody says to him, "The gentleman is not stealing your car, Sir. He just doesn't agree

with a law—the law of property—and is staging a political strike against it."
There are in my constituency many people who do not like the income tax laws. There are many who do not like the capital gains tax laws. There are many who do not like the corporation tax laws. Many people do not like paying train fares. However, it is the law of the land that they should pay them, and the Industrial Relations laws are also laws of the land. Why should a particular trade union believe it is above the law and separate from the controls which operate throughout the land for the rest of us.
Indeed, it is worth pausing for a moment to recognise that in a civilised society it is only respect for the law and observance of the law which enables us to live in freedom in a civilised manner. Without that we would have the law of the jungle, and that is what inadvertently I hope, hon. Members have been sustaining this afternoon.
The Transport and General Workers' Union at one time decided that it would ignore the court, and we had the tragic situation in that it had a perfectly good defence which it could have taken to the court and by which it could have defended itself, and would not have had to pay away £50,000 of its members' money. It chose to ignore the court, and we know what happened. Now the engineering union is doing the same thing, tragically pouring away wholly unnecessarily the funds of its members, the weekly subscriptions provided by ordinary trade unionists up and down the country being manipulated and misused by their executive committee elected by less than 10 per cent. of the members.
I am glad that in this debate hon. Members have been honest enough to say that the strikes we are suffering this week are nothing to do with Mr. Goad, that they are to do with the Industrial Relations Court and whether the law of this land should be observed. I want the Minister, when he winds up, to tell us whether the leadership of this union is liable for inciting people to break their contract by the circular they have sent out which has been responsible for the start of this series of strikes which is to take place this week. I hope he will


let us know what, if any, redress can be sought in the courts of law.
I turn to the second group, those involved in assault and similar crimes. Like other hon. Members on both sides of the House I have read the statements reported in the News of the World and other reports about what has been happening. I do not propose to go through them all but there was the case of two coachloads of pickets who closed a site at Sheffield by abusing and threatening 12 men at work. Two coachloads to stop 12 men from working! The National Federation of Building Trades Employers, reported by the News of the World, said that on 11th August
Militants with pick handles chased men off a site at Rotherham. Next day three huts and an excavator caught fire at Sheffield after men ignored a picket call to stop work.
These are examples of behaviour which has been going on recently and which has resulted in injury and damage.
The Federation sent its report to the Home Secretary, and I should like the Minister to tell us what the Home Secretary is doing about that report and whether we can expect some prosecutions to follow. I hope I do not embarrass the right hon. Member for East Ham, North when I say that I thoroughly concur in his remarks on these matters, which appeared in the News of the World, in which he said:
I completely condemn people who try to use industrial relations as a means of wrecking society.
How right he is. I would also like my hon. Friend to tell us whether the police have power to intervene to prevent these breaches of the peace. In other words, are they able to turn back a mass of pickets moving on to a site in such large numbers that by their very numbers they are intimidatory? We should know the answer to that question. Many trade unionists on both sides—the extremists and the rest—would like to know whether a breach of law is occasioned by the use of a large number of pickets, just by reason of the large number.
I turn from the assault brigade to the third group I mentioned, those who egg on and give moral support to extremists and militants. I ask hon. Gentlemen opposite to search their consciences—

Mr. Heffer: Do not be so cheeky.

Mr. Mitchell: The hon. Gentleman who should be searching his conscience says that I should not be so cheeky—

Mr. Heffer: You should worry about your own conscience.

Mr. Mitchell: I must tell the hon. Gentleman that the hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Atkinson) last summer took part in a radio broadcast with me. I have given a warning to the hon. Gentleman that I shall raise this matter and I am sorry that he is not in his place. He probably would be embarrassed by being reminded of what he said. Following his broadcast I received a letter from someone who heard what he said in the following terms:
The gist of Mr. Atkinson's remarks was however that people should quite deliberately break the law when they did not agree with it. Coming from a Member of Parliament I regard this as being a definite incitement to lawbreaking showing an almost criminal degree of irresponsibility.
I believe that it is irresponsible, and that hon. Members who accidentally, intentionally, or in the heat of the moment may have allowed themselves to make such remarks inciting people to break the law should think seriously about it before going any further.

Mr. Norman Buchan: On a point of order. A reference was made to my hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr. Atkinson), the purport of which was that his remarks were to be quoted. What followed was a quotation from someone else, a commentator—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Miss Harvie Anderson): Order.

Mr. Buchan: I have not yet finished my point of order.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: From what the hon. Gentleman is saying, it must be clear to him that it may be a matter of debate but it is not a point of order for the Chair.

Mr. Buchan: Further to that point of order. The point is that the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mr. David Mitchell) attributed to my hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham remarks in a letter. With respect, if we are not to be respected by the Chair, the hon. Gentleman might obey the etiquette of the House and correct what he said.

Mr. Mitchell: I think I can help—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I hope the hon. Member for Renfrew, West (Mr. Buchan) will accept what the Chair has already said. It is not a point of order.

Mr. Mitchell: In case there should be any misunderstanding, I confirm that my understanding of the remarks made in that broadcast by the hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Atkinson) was precisely and exactly the interpretation placed upon them by the person who wrote to me.

Mr. Robert Hughes: rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.

Mr. Hughes: On a point of order. The hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mr. David Mitchell) made specific reference to the content of a broadcast discussion between himself and the hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Atkinson) and said that he had warned my hon. Friend that this matter would be raised. He has done nothing of the sort but has raised merely an opinionated reaction to those remarks.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I have already made plain that these are not points of order.

Mr. Mitchell: I repeat that the gist of the remarks of the hon. Member for Tottenham was that people should deliberately break the law when they did not agree with it. We have this afternoon heard other hon. Members who have in effect said the same thing—
Mr. Buchan: On a point of order. Do not the rules of the House govern the etiquette and good manners of the House on which, Mr. Deputy Speaker, you might give us some guidance? What the hon. Gentleman is saying is compounding the lack of etiquette already displayed.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. It is not a point of order.

Mr. Mitchell: I am aware that my remarks are coming rather close to the conscience of certain hon. Gentlemen opposite—

Mr. Buchanan: Nonsense—examine your own.

Mr. Mitchell: I will turn to my final point. I should be loth to find that the

measurement of my time today includes the time taken by interruptions. As everyone knows, a freeze has been imposed on wage deals. I understand that many hon. Gentlemen opposite are not in favour—

Mr. Skinner: rose—

Mr. Mitchell: I, too, view such proposals with some misgiving. Many trade unionists do not want to see a permanent statutory control over wages. The vast majority of bargains which have been made have been reasonable but there has been an abuse by the militant minority—those whom I have already mentioned—who, by securing such extreme increases in wages have set at risk the whole concept of free wage bargaining. Hon. Members who have consciences on this subject, should think carefully about this.

Mr. Skinner: rose—

Mr. Mitchell: Hon. Members who have taken part in this debate have been among those who, every time a dispute has been reported to the House, have been on their feet to egg on the extremists and the most militant in their extreme wage demands.

Mr. Skinner: rose—

Mr. Mitchell: Hon. Members will be aware of the way in which the fraternal delegate from the Labour Party has gone round union conferences during the summer egging them on to the most extreme wage demands which have been largely responsible for putting at risk the right of free, open wage negotiations which the trade union movement regards as a most precious right.

5.46 p.m.

Mr. Reg Prentice: On a debate on a Private Member's motion it is customary to congratulate the mover of the motion on his success in the ballot, on his choice of subject and on the speech which he has made. I follow that tradition in speaking of the subject, because I believe that we should have more frequent debates on industrial relations. My difficulty in pursuing this congratulatory technique is that the speeches we have heard from the hon. Members for Bath (Sir E. Brown) and Torquay (Sir F. Bennett)—coupled with that of the hon. Member for Rutland


and Stamford (Mr. Kenneth Lewis) 10 days ago on a similar subject—have made it clear that hon. Gentlemen on the Government side are on the familiar and boring course of trying to identify and smear the trade union movement as a scapegoat for their own failures.
The past year, 1972, has been a record year for inflation, unemployment and industrial unrest. If any fraction of this trouble had occurred under a Labour Government the attack of Conservative Members would have been on the Government. As this has occurred under a Conservative Government, the technique is to find a scapegoat, a whipping boy, and that is the technique we have seen in operation this afternoon.

Mr. Russell Kerr: Very clumsily done.

Mr. Prentice: Very clumsily done, with all the familiar techniques of exaggerated language, quotations taken out of context, generalisations from one or two bad examples and rather obscure muckraking. The nadir was that part of the speech of the hon. Member for Torquay in which he said that he had discovered 28 prominent members of the Communist Party and then put a trawl through British industry to find out what influence they had on it. He discovered a branch chairman here, a delegate there and someone he could only describe as an active trade unionist somewhere else. This is supposed to represent the Communist infiltration into British industry. All this is very silly indeed.
As for the speech made by the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mr. David Mitchell) who referred to violence in picketing and so on, I think that there have been a few highly publicised deplorable incidents but that it would be better if Conservative Members would recognise that the trade unions have joined in condemning these incidents and have given guidance to their members about peaceful and legal picketing. Indeed the Secretary of State for Employment, in a recent radio broadcast, paid tribute to Vic Feather and other trade union leaders on their attitude.
The hon. Gentleman quoted from a dossier by the National Federation of Building Trades Employers. That document should have been discussed between the employers' organisations and the construction industry unions. The employers

would have found the unions glad to discuss these matters and to co-operate in seeing that so far as practicable those who offend against the law in this way can be identified and dissociated from union office.
One of the difficulties about speaking on a motion of this kind is that one is put almost too much on the defensive. I do not want to be on the defensive this afternoon. Of course, there are in the trade union movement many failings, as one would expect in a massive organisation containing 10 million people. I include in those failings the undue degree of influence of small political minorities here and there—certain pockets of influence within certain trade unions, and often only temporary. If we are to talk about this problem at all, if it is a big enough problem to be worth debating in this House, let us see it against the whole perspective of what the trade union movement is doing.
Let us begin with the acknowledgment that trade unionism in Britain has done more than any other social force in this century to raise the status and dignity of the average man and woman at work. It has done this job in the vast majority of cases peacefully, moderately and without recourse to industrial action or threats of industrial action. Hundreds of difficult and complicated situations are solved every day by the efforts of trade unionists in consultation with management.
Let us further recognise that this success is due to the devoted work of a small band of full-time officers, overworked and in the main under-paid. They are supported by a much larger number of people who undertake voluntary work as shop stewards, branch officials or district committee members. Any debate on the problems of the trade union movement and industrial relations should acknowledge the debt that is owed by society to the vast majority of those who play an active role in the trade union movement. It is a debt which should be clearly acknowledged on both sides of the House.
As for the political views of the 10 million trade unionists, it is quite natural that they cover a wide spectrum. What on earth do we expect? Most active members of the trade union movement are good, sensible, social democrats, and I rejoice in that fact. But there are


variations to the Left and to the Right and there are lunatic fringes on both sides of the spectrum. On the one hand, there is Mr. Bernie Steer and on the other hand the hon. Member for Bath (Sir E. Brown) who at one time, I understand, was a delegate to the London Trades Council. I am against both because they are my political opponents and adopt political principles that are different from my own. Therefore, I oppose the influence of the Conservative trade union movement—a movement which the Conservative Central Office has tried hard, without much success, to make a major force over the years—and I oppose the various groupings of the extreme Left. These movements by and large are condemned by the majority of trade unionists.
The essential point to be remembered about the Communist Party or other extreme Left groups is that they have failed almost completely over many years to gain control of any major union, or a major part of a major union. They have been contained by the moderate elements in those unions, who have rejected their philosophy. That certain individuals have been elected to office has in most cases been due to their excellence as trade union officials. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) gave the interesting example of Mr. Leo McGree. Another example that comes to mind was the choice of Arthur Horner and Will Paynter as successive general secretaries of the National Union of Mineworkers. They were prominent members of the Communist Party, but they did a first-class job as general secretary and enjoyed the confidence of their executive committees, the majority of whom had a different political outlook. There are —and should be—individuals of this kind, be they Communist or Conservative, who are not representative of the general political philosophy of the main body of trade unionists but who are elected into office on their merits.
Is there a problem that within certain parts of the trade union movement there is too much influence by groups on the extreme Left? I would say yes, here and there, but nothing like on the scale which has been suggested in this debate. And if it occurs, we can ask why. It can occur in some industries because a management's policy in a particular

industry has been so bad that nothing short of an extreme response seems to be tolerable to the workers. This has been true of the docks industry over many years. The undue influence—at least I would say that it has been undue influence —from certain militant shop stewards in the dock industry has been made possible only by the tactics of dock employers over the years. It has been a rotten industry with rotten industrial relations, for which the employers have been mainly responsible.
One matter on which we all appear to agree is that more trade unionists should participate in their trade unions, taking part in branch work, elections and all the rest.

Mr. Skinner: As I tried to explain in an earlier intervention—and I hope that my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice) was listening—there is little credence in the argument that if more people participate by taking part in the elections and in other ways the same kind of people will not come to the top. My right hon. Friend referred to Arthur Homer and Will Paynter. He must remember that they were elected general secretaries on a 70 per cent. turnout at every pit-head in the British Isles. The same thing applies in all these questions. Furthermore, my right hon. Friend should also remember how all three sections of the railway industry declared themselves on the subject of the Industrial Relations Act on a very high poll.

Mr. Prentice: My hon. Friend made the same sort of point, albeit a little more briefly, in an earlier intervention. I do not agree that what he said applies in all cases. I believe that in some cases a large vote would lead to the same result as a small vote but that in other cases it would not. We have to look at each case individually.
Whatever we say about the rôle of management or about the rôle of unions in all this, the central and most important question for this House clearly is to consider the role of the Government and of the Industrial Relations Act in the problems that we are discussing. If right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite are serious in putting to the House the view that they want to encourage moderation in the unions, to encourage the election


of moderate officers, and to encourage the pursuit of moderate policies, the first conclusion that they have to come to is to get rid of the Industrial Relations Act, which makes the rôle of moderates very much more difficult and sets the scene for the extremist in a way that he could not have bettered if he had set it for himself.

Mr. Peter Rost: Does the right hon. Gentleman support those hon. Members behind him who said earlier that the law of the land need not be obeyed?

Mr. Prentice: Of course I wish to make some reference to this, because two of my lion. Friends referred to my remarks yesterday. But I make it clear now, as I did yesterday in my broadcast, and always have, that the main culprit in this is the Government and their persistence with the Act. The way that trade unionists should react to it is important, but the most important question for this House to consider is the kind of legislation that we have on the Statute Book. We should not be diverted away from the central political question which we have to face—

Mr. Rost: I want only an answer to my question.

Mr. Prentice: The Government were warned in the summer. The dock strike took place at a time when the real issues in dispute between the employers and the dock workers had practically been settled within the framework of the recommendations of the Jones-Aldington Committee. It was an unnecessary strike. It would not have occurred if the Industrial Relations Act had not been on the Statute Book and if the procedures of the Industrial Relations Act had not been used by Midland Cold Storage Limited. I do not exonerate Midland Cold Storage from its share of the blame. Nor do I exonerate the five dockers who went to gaol. I think that they were wrong, and I said so at the time. But the main culprit was the Government in putting and keeping on the Statute Book a framework of legislation within which foolish employers and dedicated militants on the union side between them could contribute to a course of events which led to the dock strike.
At the time, we said in this House that situations of that kind would occur

again and again. Now it has ocurred again in the dispute over Mr. Goad. Let me put this to right hon. and hon. Members opposite. Are they satisfied with a law which has the effect of taking an issue which concerns whether one individual should be accepted as a member of a trade union and escalates it into a crisis which brings large numbers of people out on strike?

Mr. David Mitchell: Does the right hon. Gentleman recall that several of his hon. Friends said that this was not the issue which caused the strike—that it concerned the industrial Relations Act and not Mr. Goad? It is the observance of the law.

Mr. Prentice: I have given way twice to hon. Members opposite. I am not sure whether it was altogether wise to do so. I know what my hon. Friends said, and I want to deal with it in a moment. At present I am still trying to put this matter in the context of the Act itself. I do not want right hon. and hon. Members opposite to get away with the suggestion that this matter is the subject of an argument between right hon. and hon. Members on the Opposition benches.
There are differences between right hon. and hon. Members on this side of the House, just as there are between trade unionists about the National Industrial Relations Court. They are important differences, and no one seeks to paper over them. But we on this side of the House are united in saying that the Act is wrong and that it should go. We believe that the Act has contributed to 1972 being the worst year for industrial stoppages since 1926, and that 1973 may be worse again unless the Government see sense and repeal or amend the Act.
I have taken the view for many months—I did so as early as March or April, soon after the Act came into force—that the unions should recognise the existence of the Court. Certainly they ought not to initiate cases before the Court. They should not co-operate with it to that extent. But I have always thought it right that if they are brought before the Court by an employer or an individual they ought to defend themselves in the Court. This view has been accepted by the executives of the major unions one by one. The rail unions accepted it at the time of their dispute. The Transport and


General Workers' Union accepted it and has operated it in a series of cases in which it has been brought before the Court. The TUC annual conference in September rejected the AUEW resolution asking the unions not to go to the Court.
My view is in line with that taken by the majority of the trade union movement. I think that it is correct, on two basic grounds. First it is a matter of principle that the law of the land should be obeyed. If it is bad law, it should be changed by democratic argument, democratic election and the processes of Parliament. Meanwhile, it is the law of the land and should be obeyed as such. The second ground is one of tactics. It is not intelligent tactics to pursue a course which leads to a union's funds being depleted by unnecessary fines and to thousands of workers losing a day's pay just before Christmas in a strike which serves no purpose. Certainly it will not do anything to get the Act amended. If it has an effect on the situation, it will be a marginal effect the other way in confirming the views of those who believe that such an Act is necessary.

Mr. Heffer: I am sure that I am spelling out something which my right hon. Friend and every other right hon. and hon. Member on this side of the House knows. During the period of the Combination Acts, to start with print workers working for The Times were imprisoned for nine months for going on strike. They broke the law. All that they were trying to do was to improve their wages and conditions. They spent nine months in prison. That is only one example of the history of our movement. It has been a history of struggle against unjust class laws directed against the workers—

Mr. Rost: Too long.

Mr. Heffer: I am not talking to the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South-East (Mr. Rost). I am talking to my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice). Does not my right hon. Friend agree that there are occasions, with unjust class laws such as this one is, when it is perfectly understandable that workers should make a stand and, as Vic Feather said in a speech earlier this year, refuse to recognise such an unjust law?

Mr. Prentice: It is not reasonable to compare the two situations. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) talked about the Combination Acts. He is talking about a period when trade unionism had no legal status and when working men had no votes. He is not talking about a free society. The long struggle since then has had two main features. The first has been the extension of the franchise stage by stage until every person over the age of 18 is able to take part in the choice of a Government and can vote to turn out a Government that lie does not like. Side by side with that has been the growth of the trade union movement and its establishment, until today when it is called, quite reasonably, one of the estates of the realm.
We are not discussing a situation in which men were faced with the necessity to break laws in order to take the first steps towards trade unionism. I support the memory of those men and of the Tolpuddle martyrs. I hope that I would have had the courage to join them if I had lived in that period. But there is no historical parallel between them and what is happening today.
The battle against the Industrial Relations Act was lost on 18th June 1970. If the trade union movement had co-operated in pulling out the votes of trade unionists and the families in the way that they should have done, we would have had neither a Conservative Government nor the Industrial Relations Act. What I want to ensure—and I am talking purely in practical terms now—is that the stance we take as a movement now and in the period ahead will help us get rid of this Government at the earliest possible moment and therefore of the Industrial Relations Act.

Mr. Orme: This is the point to which some of us have been trying to address ourselves. If we say that the fault lies with those workers who did not vote for the Labour Government in 1970, and thereby we should wait until the next election, when everything will be put right, the argument inside the Labour movement is that unless a fight is put up—and the AUEW is putting up a fight—against this most unjust law and the unjust National Industrial Relations


Court, we shall not have a Labour Government to change the law.

Mr. Prentice: Of course a fight must be put up. But I think that the way to conduct it is by the normal processes of democracy—by meetings, by debates in this House, by persuading people on the doorstep of the need for political change. That is the way to fight the Act. That is the way that we shall get rid of it. One of the arguments I have used against the AUEW in this situation is that it is not putting up an effective fight against the Act. I do not want to rub it in, but the news today is that 100,000 people are out on strike, and that is only about one-tenth of the engineering section of the union. Of course the trade union leaders have their problems. But if one is to try to beat the Act by industrial action, one needs a long general strike and nothing else, I do not believe in that in principle, but if I did I would want it to have some chance of succeeding. I would not want it to be ineffectual, because that simply gives the worst of both worlds.
The House should see the situation in perspective. Frankly, hon. Members opposite give the impression that they do not understand the agonising doubt which this sort of situation creates among trade unionists. They should try to understand it better. They are the main culprits. Not just the Government but all those who voted to enact this legislation are guilty. The Goad case will not be the last. There will be others next year and the year after that if this Act goes on.

Mr. Tom King: The right hon. Gentleman has made an interesting comment and now seems to be reversing his previous position. He is talking again about getting rid of the Act, but he allowed in an earlier comment that the possibility otherwise was substantially to amend it. No one is talking about the repeal of such features as extended periods of notice and right of appeal against unfair dismissal. So we are talking about amending certain sections which right hon. and hon. Members opposite say are causing and aggravating industrial relations problems. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has offered to discuss amendments of the Act. Would it not be more helpful to future developments if

we stopped talking about repeal and concentrated on areas of the Act causing concern?

Mr. Prentice: Our policy is to repeal the Act. In replacing it by up-to-date legislation, of course we shall provide for appeal against unfair dismissal. Indeed, we were first in the field with such provisions. They were in the Bill which the Labour Government produced and which was before Parliament when the 1970 General Election was called.
I return finally to the motion. As I have said, I think it is a pity that we should debate trade unionism only in terms of the failings or alleged failings, or of the bad examples or alleged bad examples, of the trade union movement. I would like to see trade unions debated in this House and discussed in the country in terms of all the positive and useful things which have been done through the medium of the movement. I think that a challenge should be issued here. The union leaders themselves should take up the challenge. They should recognise the need to involve themselves in a positive public relations offensive. They should tell their own story to the general public—and in the general public I include the many millions of trade unionists who simply pay their subscriptions and then read about their union in the Daily Express or the Daily Mirror.
The public should know about the hundreds of productivity agreements reached every year, very often on trade union initiative. They should know the story of the electricity supply industry and the great contribution made to its productivity by trade unionists in the last few years—even to the extent that management officials have been to the union's own college in order to learn about the techniques of such productivity agreements.
The public should know about the coal industry in recent years, and its struggle in very difficult circumstances, with a rundown in the labour force and with great co-operation between the unions and the management. The public should know about the legal aid services provided by the unions. They should know about the education schemes, including scholarships and the rest. They should know about the convalescent homes for sick members.


They should know about the 101 different ways in which the trade union movement is contributing to the welfare of its members and the health of British industry.
It will be an uphill task, because the media are not necessarily responsive. But the trade unions should try harder to get their story across, so that there is a sense of purpose in the study of trade unionism in Britain. The motion uses the word "militants". It has become a derogatory term. Hon. Members on both sides have used it, and I expect that I have used it. We tend to do so, however, in a way which implies an unreasonable attitude, a refusal to compromise, bloodymindedness. But what we need in the trade union movement is militancy in the sense of hard, dedicated work for the reasonable objectives of the movement. I would like to see a revival of militancy and participation by much larger numbers of people in increasing membership, in improving organisation, in union meetings. [Interruption.] I wish that some of my hon. Friends would keep quiet and allow me to proceed. There are certain courtesies in this House.
I would like to see a revival of some of the values which have always been part of the historical traditions of the movement, in the sense that members are prepared to work not only for their own wage claims or their immediate demands but for each other. There are many issues in modern industry which require that approach. I would like to see greater militancy, including greater militancy by the well-paid on behalf of the low-paid. I would like to see greater militancy on the part of the men on behalf of the women for equal pay and greater opportunity. I would like to see greater militancy on behalf of the young workers, particularly for training and further education opportunities. I would like to see greater militancy on the part of white workers for equal status for coloured workers—and the current strike in Loughborough must be taken very seriously indeed by both sides of industry when the inquiry is complete.
In other words, we are faced in modern industry with a great many problems that require militancy and the right kind of application of the traditional values of brotherhood and solidarity in the trade

union movement if we are to deal with them in the 1970s.

6.18 p.m.

The Minister of State, Department of Employment (Mr. Robin Chick ester-Clark): I wonder at the fact that a few not perhaps casual but preprandial remarks made by the right hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice) this weekend should have got him into such dire trouble this afternoon. I had difficulty in following his speech at one point because he was having to weave and dodge about so much in order to escape the brickbats which came from his own side of the House.

Mr. Russell Kerr: We have open discussion in our party.

Mr. Chichester-Clark: The right hon. Gentleman made a brave speech, and the popularity which he may lose in his own party he will make up in respect from the country. I shall not follow him in detail into the customary inveighings against the Act but I join him in the tribute that he paid to the achievements of the trade union movement over the years.
I am not in disagreement with my hon. Friends because their motion pays tribute to the work of the trade union movement. My hon. Friends are concerned that a small minority should undermine the respect in which the trade union movement is held. [Interruption.] Before I deal with the motion, I hope that the hon. Member for Feltham (Mr. Russell Kerr) will keep quiet. He has been mumbling all afternoon. I shall have a few special words for him at the end of my remarks. Perhaps he will contain his impatience until that time.
Before I deal with the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Sir E. Brown) I will mention some of the remarks which were made by the hon. Member for Salford, West (Mr. Orme) in a curious intervention. He said that violent picketing had apparently begun only since the Act came into force. He seems to have forgotten—and I have not—about what occurred at the Barbican site in 1968, and the many arrests which were made during the Pilkington affair in 1970. Perhaps he will cast his mind back to those affairs and decide whether his remarks about picketing were so justified as he seemed to believe.
The hon. Gentleman also said that few major industrialists had gone to the Industrial Relations Court. He wondered why that was so, and seemed to be urging them to do so. But the Government have always made it clear that that was a course of last resort. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman wishes to see it employed more often. However, it seemed a curious remark to come from him. Few industrialists have gone to the court, but one example is that of C. A. Parsons, which took a recognition dispute to the court. The dispute ended in a CIR recommendation in favour of the hon. Gentleman's union—the AUEW. It seems that the remarks which he made this afternoon were somewhat misplaced.
I shall not refer to the arrogance which was shown by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) to some of my hon. Friends earlier today. However, I shall refer to one of the hon. Gentleman's remarks. In calling for the repeal of the Act the hon. Gentleman sometimes suggests that he has some ideas to put in its place. To say he made the rather curious suggestion that we might have an industrial health service. What a new and very good idea. Or it would have been had it been propagated some time ago. The truth is that the employment medical advisory service begins operating next month, so the hon. Gentleman is out of touch with that matter and a little behind. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will support it in every way that he can.

Mr. Buchan: The speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice) was linked with industrial safety. It was the hon. Gentleman's Government who last year destroyed a Private Member's Bill to introduce industrial safety in relation to industrial safety committees. The Government and the Government Whips destroyed it.

Mr. Chichester-Clark: As the hon. Gentleman knows, there are many measures coming forward on this matter which he will have the opportunity to discuss. I hope that he will do so. [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman will be unable to say anything about the record of the Government in that direction.
I make no complaint that by a strange coincidence the motions which my hon. Friends the Members for Bath and Tor-

quay (Sir F. Bennett) have introduced are in exactly the same terms. [Interruption.] They are accepting and reflecting a concern which is felt by many people about the future of British industry. It is the concern of anyone who has the future of British industry at heart, no matter what are his political sympathies. That is something with which the right hon. Member for East Ham, North, would not dissent. My hon. Friends the Members for Bath and Torquay touched upon a chord of disquiet in the hearts of many people. [Interruption.] Perhaps, like the right hon. Gentleman, I might ask that there be a little courtesy in the House. The right hon. Gentleman rounded on his hon. Friends, and I do likewise.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Repeated sedentary interruptions destroy debate.

Mr. Chichester-Clark: My hon. Friends were both specific. The House will not deny that. They both made it clear what they meant by subversion and politically-motivated militance.
The House will accept that it is important to make a distinction between subversion and militancy. I describe militancy as a readiness to threaten, and, if necessary, to use strikes and other forms of industrial action. That is not in itself subversive. That is what the right hon. Gentleman was saying. We can each deplore particular instances of militancy of which we ourselves disapprove for various reasons, but no one in this House will deny the freedom of trade unions to pursue the interests of their members in industrial activity in disputes with employers. That is accepted, I think, by both sides of the House. I have not heard it denied in any speech. It is regarded as one of the basic freedoms in this country, and it is one which we mean to maintain. But when it is used to threaten the safety of the nation or to undermine parliamentary democracy by industrial or violent means, it becomes subversion. At least, that is my definition.
That is something which I hope we shall always be prepared to stand out against. Those who push militancy to the extreme of an absolute refusal to accept any compromise solution, however fair, must learn that the Government—and finally the people of this country—will not allow small minorities to hold the country to ransom.
We must always recognise that there are those who want to continue strikes after both sides have accepted a settlement. We must recognise—my hon. Friends dealt with this matter and names were mentioned, but I shall not mention them—that there are political groups whose aims are to subvert the national life of this country and overthrow the system of democracy. [Interruption.] If the hon. Member for Feltham has something to say, let him get up and say it.

Mr. Russell Kerr: Will the Minister confirm that there are always nuts on the fringe of any movement, either left or right, who stoop to this childish nonsense?

Mr. Chichester-Clark: The hon. Gentleman gives me the strongest confirmation that there are nuts on the fringe of any movement. We must accept that there are political groups whose aims are to subvert our national life and to overthrow our parliamentary system of democracy. They never cease to work for the establishment of power through infiltration tactics. The Communist Party itself does not primarily urge the use of violent methods. [Interruption.] Is the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton seeking to intervene?

Mr. Heffer: Yes, if the hon. Gentleman invites that.

Mr. Chichester-Clark: The Communist Party wants to take over at least the outward structure of a political system. We probably all accept that. That is where it differs from the Trotskyists and Maoists to its left. We can easily find them indeed, evidence has been read this afternoon that we can find them criticising the Communist Party for what they see as its excessive moderation. They frequently urge violence with a view to revolution. It is worth noting that the Communist Party, speaking about the TUC, says:
The right wing still controls the machinery of the TUC, not to mention the Labour Party and the Parliamentary Party, and the left will need to organise its forces, sharpen its steel and deepen its political analysis and understanding if it is to make real deep inroads into the right wing hold on the movement in the coming stage of the struggle.
That may be of some interest to some hon. Members opposite.

Mr. Alex Eadie: rose—

Mr. Chichester-Clark: I will give way in a moment. A resolution at the Communist Party Conference in November 1971 was quoted in a speech of which, I understand, the right hon. Gentleman disapproved. I refer to a truncated speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. Kenneth Lewis) about 10 days ago. The resolution's aims were "to increase industrial activity" that means strikes and disturbances—and it urged the winning over of the majority of unions and the ending of the right wing domination of the TUC council.

Mr. Russell Kerr: Big news.

Mr. Chichester-Clark: The hon. Gentleman says that it is big news. He should witch hunt. I do not know whether he wants to indulge in one. Needless to say the Communist Party does not always pursue its aims in an open manner or, indeed, under its own name. Like many other subversive organisations it uses front organisations.
I welcome one fact. The Labour Party is very good at listing a number of subversive or proscribed organisations. I withdraw the word "subversive" and substitute the word "proscribed". There is a very good list of proscribed organisations available for hon. Gentlemen opposite so that they know where they are going. Such organisations are not illegal, nor would anyone in the House wish them to be so. Watching them carefully is a price we have to pay.
I mentioned earlier the use by trade unionists of industrial action in the interests of their members. No one quarrels with that. I had in mind then the kinds of strikes which so often occur over pay disputes, conditions of work and sometimes demarcation or recognition. We know that legitimate industrial interests of the obvious kind are sometimes exploited by political minorities. Strikes for political purposes are another matter. Let there be no doubt about that. We have seen all too many of them in recent years. There has been far too much of that sort of industrial action against the Industrial Relations Act, against the fair rents provisions of the Housing Finance Act and several others. That has been gravely emphasised by certain right hon. Gentlemen opposite. The place for action on such matters is


not the shop floor, not the streets, but the House of Commons, through the duly and democratically elected Members of this Parliament.
I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman is now trying to have a further dispute. Why does he not look up what his right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition said when appearing on "Panorama"?

Mr. Heffer: The guillotine was used on those Bills.

Mr. Chichester-Clark: The hon. Gentleman says that the guillotine was used on both Bills. The guillotine is a device used by both sides of Parliament. The hon. Member knows that the law was passed by this Parliament. He knows it is a law of the land. Let him now give some encouragement to those who seek to obey the law and who wish to see it obeyed.
Referring to the rôle of trade unionists, most trade unionists in this country are anxious that the movement should confine itself to the defence of the interests of its members; subversion is no part of any of its wishes. Many people would welcome the forthright statement of the right hon. Member for East Ham, North reported in the News of the World on 29th October:
I completely condemn people who try to use industrial relations as a means of wrecking society. What is needed in the trade union movement is much more participation by the majority of members so that a tiny minority don't have too much power.
I endorse that. I am sure all my hon. Friends endorse that. I hope that most hon. Members opposite also endorse it.
Apathy cannot be overcome by legislation. During the course of the Industrial Relations Act we tried to help, so far as possible, with rights, to make sure that individual trade unionists are not deprived of their voice in the union government. Those provisions could well be helpful if they are properly used.
My hon. Friends the Members for Torquay and Basingstoke (Mr. David Mitchell) were rightly concerned about the trade unionists' part in voting and in participation. It is true that some unions have always had a very good record of participation in elections. For the president of one railway union recently there was a 77 per cent. poll. There are very wide disparities. I noticed that when

interviewed on television not long ago the president of one of the largest unions in this country did not deny it when the interviewer told him he had been elected by only 6 per cent. of his membership. He did not deny that. It is encouraging that more unions are now using postal ballots. The percentage of members voting in elections has recently been higher. For the post of general secretary of the National Union of General and Municipal Workers 85 per cent. of members voted. It is not surprising that that trend is probably a cause of concern to extremist members of some unions who have traditionally benefited from low polls and small turnouts.

Mr. Heffer: rose—

Mr. Chichester-Clark: I shall not give way, since I have already given way so often.

Mr. Heffer: The hon. Member knows nothing about it.

Mr. Chichester-Clark: As I was saying, I hope that the—

Mr. Russell Kerr: On a point of fact, Mr. Speaker—

Mr. Speaker: Order. It may seem strange but there is no such thing in this House.

Mr. Russell Kerr: On a point of order, I am sure the hon. Gentleman would not wish to mislead the House concerning the point about 85 per cent. having voted in the NUG and MW elections for the general secretary. That is not a fact. I understand the branches' votes were aggregated. The individual votes of members of that union were not taken into account.

Mr. Chichester-Clark: The hon. Gentleman can pursue his investigations into that matter. I have given him the best information I have.
I should like to mention the subject of picketing—a matter of particular concern to my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke and many other hon. Members. I tried earlier to make some distinction between militancy and subversion. It is undoubtedly true that the word "militancy" has taken on a new meaning in recent months. It has been equated in a good many minds with violence, and


particularly violence in picket lines. One thing ought to be made clear—the right to be militant is not the right to use violence. The law permits picketing provided it is peaceful and does not involve threats, intimidation or any form of compulsion of any kind. When picketing ceases to be peaceful it is a criminal offence. Pickets have no immunity against charges for offences under the general law such as assault or obstructing a police officer in the execution of his duty. Most charges arising out of picketing incidents are for offences of the kind I have mentioned. There were 350 arrests in the coal and docks strikes.
While the right to picket peacefully is permitted under the law, and is protected, those who wish to continue working despite the efforts of the pickets must be free to do so. That is the cardinal principle in this whole matter.
A great deal has been said about the rights of those who wish to strike. Equally, everyone has a right to work. What society cannot tolerate is violence on the part of the criminal or violence used as a means to achieve political ends.
The courts have also held that an excessive number of pickets can amount to intimidation. I draw the attention of my hon. Friends who are particularly interested in the subject, which is very much in the minds of some of their constituents, to some of the results which have flowed from strikes during this year. In the miner's and docker's strikes earlier this year, there were, as I have said, 350 arrests, leading to the imposition of what were, in fact, substantial fines. In one incident, fines totalling £125 were imposed on one individual—which is not exactly chicken-feed. During incidents in August at the Trent and Humber Ports, 60 pickets were arrested and 31 were dealt with by the courts, when the majority were fined about £40. I think that the figure of 31 should, in fact, be higher. I shall check it and let my hon. Friend know.
It would, therefore, be entirely wrong to imply that the courts do not enforce the law or that the level of penalties is inadequate. The penalty in each case, of course, is a matter for the courts. But I reiterate that the right to conduct peaceful picketing exists and, since it exists, so also must the right exist of those who

wish to work, without hindrance or intimidation.
As the House knows—this has been made plain over and over again in the country—the Government do not direct the police. However, it is true that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has recently met the chief officers of police to discuss the whole range of problems involved in picketing, including manpower reinforcements between police forces and other forms of co-operation, and he has stressed the importance which the Government attach to the preservation of the right to work. He has assured the police that they will have the fullest support of the Government in enforcing the law, and I am sure that I can add that they will have the fullest support of the House also in doing that.
I began by trying to define the difference between militancy and subversion. It is not easy to define that difference, as everyone recognises. On the other hand, the whole House recognises—I know that my hon. Friends do, and, in particular, I am certain that this is well appreciated by my hon. Friend the Member for Bath, who has been chided for his absence but who has been here the whole time within the hearing of the House—the difficult problems which trade unionists face in our society in deciding just how far legitimate militancy can be taken without serving the subversive elements whose aim is to take advantage of disputes, without being used by what has already been described as the efficient and disciplined industrial apparatus controlled by Communist party headquarters.
We have already been reminded of these words of the Leader of the Opposition:
No major strike occurs anywhere in this country in any sector of industry in which that apparatus fails to concern itself".
[Laughter.] The hon. Member for Feltham may laugh. Let him take it up with his leader, and not waste the time of the House now.
That sort of situation reflects the measure of the dilemma which trade unionists face when they enter upon a dispute which is very properly concerned only with the welfare of trade union members. It is not an enviable position, but it is a position which the public at large should understand. It represents in quite


specific form the whole dilemma of democracy.
I leave this quotation with the House—it should appeal to the hon. Member for Feltham—
The fight is on to keep an independent trade union movement in the face of attacks by the Government"—
by the Labour Government, be it noted, according to the Communist Party document which I am there quoting. So we have something in common. Between both sides of the House we enjoy, or endure, one thing in common, a deliberately created misunderstanding of our various positions and the outright opposition of the Communist Party to will any form of order into our industrial relations.
We on the Government side want to work with the unions. A great deal has been done to demonstrate that. We know—my hon. Friend the Member for Torquay (Sir F. Bennett), in a powerful speech, made this very clear—that the majority of trade unionists recoil at the thought of threats to the fabric of our society. However, whether such threats come from over-stretched militancy—if I may use that expression—or whether they come from subversion, if a threat is made to our democratic institutions, to our electoral processes or, indeed, to the will of the electorate, it must be met, for no Government can afford to be left simply with the trappings of office, as some have been, when real power lies elsewhere. Governments are elected to govern, and we are determined that the reins of government shall not pass to anyone who is not elected by the British people.
I said that I would offer a little advice, in the humblest possible way, to some of those who are noisiest below the Gangway opposite. This is what I say to them:
The Communist does not look upon a Socialist as an ally in a common cause. He looks upon him as a dupe, as a temporary convenience, and as something to be thrust ruthlessly to one side when he has served his purpose.
Those are not my words.

Mr. Russell Kerr: I am sure they are not.

Mr. Chichester-Clark: They are the words of the late Aneurin Bevan, and I strongly commend them to certain hon.

Members opposite, some of whom, I agree, will have great difficulty in not showing themselves to be dupes.

6.45 p.m.

Mr. Norman Atkinson: One of the difficulties in this sort of debate—

Mr. Heffer: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The hon. Member for Epping (Mr. Tebbit) said that I was a Communist. He had better withdraw that now. I am not a Communist. As a very young man, I was once in the Communist Party, and I was expelled. I have been involved in many struggles against the Communists over the years, and I want—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I do not think that it would be disorderly to make such a suggestion. Whether it be accurate or not is another matter, but no question of order arises.

Mr. Heffer: Mr. Speaker, I am asking that the hon. Gentleman withdraw.

Mr. Norman Tebbit: May I try to help the House, Mr. Speaker? The motion of my hand was not particularly pointed at the hon. Member, although he leapt to his feet. If he feels that it was so addressed, I unreservedly withdraw any imputation.

Mr. Buchan: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. With respect, may I ask you to reconsider your last ruling? I am sorry to delay the House, but the suggestion now made is that it was a general comment upon hon. Members on these benches. You ruled, Sir, that it was not a matter of order. I submit that it is a matter reflecting upon the honour of every Member referred to. It suggests, for example, that we are here under false pretences, that the way in which we presented ourselves to our electorate was a false pretence. If that does not reflect upon the honour of hon. Members, I do not know what does. I hope that you will instruct the hon. Member to withdraw completely and to apologise directly to the House.

Mr. Speaker: I think that the hon. Gentleman is being too sensitive. I have been a Member at a time when there were two Communist Members of Parliament. To call an hon. Member a Communist or a Conservative or a Socialist is to


apply a political description. It is not disorderly.

Mr. Buchan: I am sorry to persist, Mr. Speaker, but it was not in the nature of a political description. It was an attempt to smear and to impugn the honour of those of us who have sat openly under our own party-political banners and presented ourselves in that way to the electorate. That is very different, I submit, from calling you, Sir—if I may apply it to you, with respect—a Communist or an anarchist, and I hope that your ruling will show it.

Mr. Speaker: Unfortunately, the hon. Member cannot call me anything now because, so soon as one becomes Speaker, one becomes a political neuter. I have no party. But I shall consider the point and, if necessary, rule upon it.

Mr. Atkinson: If it has done nothing else, the debate has shown how important it is that we do not allow television into the Chamber. The difficulty in a debate of this kind, on a union bashing motion from the Government back benches which has no serious base whatever but is merely for propaganda purposes, is that we on this side have to decide whether to participate and try to present some serious argument. However, certain charges have been made, and I think it necessary that a legitimate point of view should be put in answer from these benches, and I wish to take up three of the points which the hon. Gentleman made.
In the middle of his speech, the hon. Gentleman dealt with the influence of members of the Communist Party in the trade union movement. He will have to alter his attitude towards the Communist Party if we are to go into Europe, for he will find there that industrial discussion is much more broadly based than it is in this country now. His present attitude towards the Communist Party in this country could not be applied to Communist Party activities in Europe, where the situation is very different.
The hon. Gentleman made certain observations about the trade union leadership. Does he suggest that, if the TUC-CBI talks at Downing Street were subject to political examination and it was found that the trade union leaders representing

the TUC were members of the Communist Party, the Prime Minister would refuse to meet them? That is what the hon. Gentleman implied. He implied that such people would not be legitimate leaders of the trade unions and therefore should not be allowed to participate in the Downing Street talks.
If the hon. Gentleman believes that those people were honourable and were members of the Communist Party, the Prime Minister should welcome them in the Downing Street talks and he should make that clear and not imply that people taking part in such talks should be subject to political examination.

Mr. Chichester-Clark: The hon. Gentleman is looking very hard at me, but I do not know whether he is directing his remarks at me. I am not sure whether he heard all of my speech, but I do not think that he could draw any implication of the kind that he is making from what I said. I went out of my way to point out that the Communist Party was not illegal.

Mr. Atkinson: I thought that the hon. Gentleman was making the case that most of the Communist Party was not honourable people and therefore should not be allowed to participate in the Downing Street talks because their motives were ulterior.

Mr. Alex Eadie: I speak as a moderate. Does my hon. Friend agree that the hon. Gentleman became confused because he tried to make out that there was something peculiar about "left" and "right", as though the "left" was a product of some predatory organisation, whereas in fact it emanates from Parliament because people in opposition sit to the left of Mr. Speaker and people in government sit to the right of Mr. Speaker. There is nothing predatory about these phrases. Does my hon. Friend agree that the hon. Gentleman's use of the phrases "left" and "right" was predatory in itself?

Mr. Atkinson: I accept what my hon. Friend says. There is nothing sinister in the word "left" in this context, except that it denotes a minority in a democracy. Nothing more is implied.
I understand that the debate finishes at seven o'clock—

Mr. Heffer: We can talk it out.

Mr. Atkinson: —and therefore I have only a few minutes in which to make my points.
My argument that the Industrial Relations Court is a political court and gives effect to political judgments is demonstrated by some of the remarks made today. An agreement on an effective £2 increase in wages right across the board could have come out of the Downing Street talks between the TUC and the CBI and it would then have been the responsibility of the TUC and the CBI to honour that agreement made with the Government and to implement whatever was decided. But it could be the job of the Industrial Relations Court to ensure that that agreement was fixed and that it was not possible for any section of the trade union movement to find a way round it.
Therefore, the court would essentially be part of a political apparatus for carrying out an agreement made at Downing Street which might have been made without the total agreement of the trade union movement. Not all the unions might be parties to an agreement of that kind. The court could well be a political instrument in that sense.
I want to put right my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice) who referred to the position of the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers. He said that the position of the AUEW was contrary to the decision of the TUC. That is not so. The decision of the TUC about participating in the court or a union defending itself in the court was that each union should have the choice. The TUC did not advocate that unions should go to the court to defend themselves. It said that because of the position taken at Croydon a long time ago boycotting the whole apparatus of the court and industrial law there was need for amendment, and the amendment was that each union should decide for itself whether it should defend itself and participate in the court. In that sense, therefore, the AUEW is as much in line with TUC policy as is the Transport and General Workers Union, which defended itself in the court.
The other choice facing trade unions which bears on this debate is whether a union should register. That is the crux

of the problem regarding the Goad case and the industrial strife taking place this week which will continue. The difficulty for a non-registered union is whether its rule book continues to have validity in law. There have been precedents created in the High Court that the rule book should govern the behaviour of the leaders of unions who are bound to accept the rules in each union's constitution.
That is the position concerning the AUEW's Sudbury branch, which is at the centre of the controversy and which refused to accept Mr. Goad into membership of the branch. Incidentally, Mr. Goad is known, in trade union language, as a "boat race member". He has been a member of the AUEW on three separate occasions and expelled, and he has been a member of the Transport and General Workers' Union and been expelled. He is "in out, in out". That is the sort of fellow that we are dealing with. Therefore, the chairman of the Sudbury branch says that within the rules of the union this man cannot he admitted.

Mr. Tom King: Why does it not go to the Court and say so?

Mr. Atkinson: It may go to another court and say exactly that and that court must uphold the rule book. The branch says that it is under no obligation to accept Mr. Goad into membership, and it has every right to do that.
If the law or the court says that all people in industry have the right to join the trade union of their choice, that must mean that no union has the right of expulsion. But that is not so. The right of expulsion has been upheld in the High Court just as clearly as the Industrial Relations Court has upheld the right of the individual to become a member of the union of his choice. In that sense alone there is a direct collision between the interpretation of a trade union rule book and the Industrial Relations Act. If Mr. Goad was admitted to the branch, the trade union concerned would be immediately exposed to the rigours of the High Court because members of the AUEW could sue or proceed through that court, seeking some sort of correction and prohibiting the officers of the branch from accepting that person into membership.
Whichever way one looks at this matter, there is a conflict between the


precedents established by the High Court relative to union rules and the decisions being given by the Industrial Relations Court. Therefore, the time has come for the court to be suspended so that the trade union movement or the Government can come to a serious conclusion on whether it is legitimate or allow the existence of non-registered unions and also to try to define what is the legal status—

It being Seven o'clock, the Proceedings on the Motion lapsed, pursuant to Standing Order No. 6 (Precedence of Government Business).

PROCEDURE

Mr. Speaker: The House now comes to items Nos. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 on the Order Paper. There is a procedural difficulty here which I should like to put to the House. It seems to me that there are two ways of dealing with the matter. Either there should be a general debate covering the specific points or it should be agreed that during the debate those points should not be referred to. I think the House would wish that there should not be two debates on every topic.
I am not selecting the amendment to item No. 5, but I am selecting all the other amendments unless they have fallen before we reach them.
I am prepared for the House to do what it wishes in this matter. I gather that it might be more convenient to have a general debate to begin with on matters not covered by the specific amendments and then to deal separately with the specific amendments. That view has been put to me, but it is matter for the House.

Mr. Arthur Latham: May I seek further guidance from you, Mr. Speaker, as to what you intend by that? My particular interest is in item No. 8, Delegated Legislation. You will appreciate that it might be difficult, in referring to the Report of the Joint Committee, to avoid referring to the way in which the Leader of the House has proposed that those recommendations should be implemented. May we at least understand that if, for the general convenience of the House, we discuss general

principles and subsequently deal with specific proposals, the Chair will not be too strict in ruling out necessary and material references to both the general policy discussion and the proposed form of implementation on the Order Paper?

Mr. Michael English: If we are to proceed in the way that has been suggested to you, Mr. Speaker, may I suggest that we do not need a general debate. I recollect occasions when the take-note motion has merely been moved formally and hon. Member have argued about the individual motions. In other words, I think that your two alternatives are even more extreme than you stated.

Mr. Edward Short: I welcome your proposal, Mr. Speaker. I think it is a sensible way of dealing with the matter to have a general wide-ranging debate and then to deal with the amendments rather more quickly and specifically.

Mr. Speaker: If I may construe my suggestion, I should think that in the general debate we would not discuss the paragraphs mentioned in the amendments to the other motions, but it is for the House.

7.3 p.m.

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. James Prior): I beg to move,
That this House takes note of the Report of the Select Committee on Parliamentary Questions, of the Second Report of the Select Committee on Procedure relating to Consolidated Fund Bills and Ministerial Statements, of the Third Report of the Select Committee on Procedure relating to the attendance of Members at meetings of Select Committees and of the Report of the Select Committee appointed to join with a Select Committee appointed by the Lords on Delegated Legislation, in the last Session of Parliament.
I am grateful to you, Mr. Speaker, for your ruling and I shall do my best to stick to it. I am afraid that I have prepared my speech in a way which deals with the amendments. However, I will leave out that part of my speech and try to reply at a later stage.
I should like to make some general remarks on the procedural matters which we are now to discuss in the take-note motions.
First, I propose to deal with the Report of the Select Committee on Parliamentary


Questions, to follow that with the Second Report last Session of the Select Committee on Procedure concerning the arrangements for debates on Consolidated Fund Bills and ministerial statements, to come on to the Committee's Third Report last Session about the rights of Members to attend meetings of Select Committees and, lastly, to deal with the Report of the Joint Committee on Delegated Legislation.
As hon. Members will be aware, the Government have already indicated to the House in Written Answers their general views on all these reports. This evening I propose briefly to amplify the statements and to explain the reasons behind them.
Turning, first, therefore, to the Report of the Select Committee on Parliamentary Questions, I know that there are many hon. Members—

Mr. Latham: Before the right hon. Gentleman proceeds with the speech which he has described, may I ask him to indicate his approach, as Leader of the House, to pressing any proposals to which there is substantial opposition by hon. Members? He will recall that on a number of occasions when dealing with matters of this kind his predecessors have indicated that they wished to proceed only with those matters which might have general agreement and that those on which there was a division of opinion might be open to further discussion. It would be helpful to many of us if we had an indication at the onset of the attitude of the Leader of the House in approaching these matters tonight.

Mr. Prior: I will try to give an indication of my approach. I should like to get as many of these motions as possible through this evening. If a motion meets enormous opposition from hon. Members on either side of the House—many of them are entirely House of Commons matters—I shall bow to the will of the House. Certainly on points concerned with Question Time and, if possible, on particular matters dealing with the Brooke Committee Report, I should very much like the House to be able to take decisions tonight. However, if we cannot take decisions tonight, I should want to listen to what is said and come back to the matter at an early stage.
I thought that it would be convenient for the House to have a debate as soon as it could be arranged on these procedural matters which have been outstanding for quite a long time. That is the way that I should like to conduct the debate. There is not much point in having a debate unless I listen to what is said. I am prepared to do that. Perhaps we could see how the opposition—I do not mean opposition on party lines—to anything I may say proceeds.
I know that many hon. Members take the view that Question Time is one of our most valuable parliamentary occasions and that it is of great importance to ensure that it is used in the best possible way. I therefore believe that the whole House will welcome the wide terms of reference given to the Select Committee which enabled it to look more deeply into the procedures and use made of Question Time than the immediate issue which gave rise to its appointment.
I do not think that hon. Members would wish the fact that the Committee had ministerial chairmen to preclude me from expressing, on behalf of the House, our gratitude to all the members of the Select Committee for a most valuable report.
Perhaps I might refer first to the proposal, which the Government recommend to the House, for the rationing of Oral Questions.
As hon. Members will have noted, the proposal is that in future not more than eight Questions may be tabled in a period of 10 sitting days ahead during which notice of Questions may be given, and that not more than two Questions for Oral Answer may be tabled for answer on any day, and only one Question may be tabled to any Minister on that day. I recommend this proposal to the House on the ground that I believe it will significantly improve the fair distribution of oral questioning opportunities between Members.
At the moment, as the Select Committee has pointed out, although 496 Members put down Questions in 1971, 46 Members asked nearly half the total Oral Questions which were tabled. Since only about one in three of Oral Questions tabled is reached, this means that other questioners must suffer.
I believe that this proposal will give those Members who do not ask Questions as frequently as that a better chance to have their Questions answered orally and that it will also end the kind of practice whereby some amongst us table a considerable number of Questions on the first appropriate day simply to get a better chance of one of their Questions being drawn out high on the list by the printer.

Mr. John Mendelson: Before the right hon. Gentleman assumes that there is general agreement on the underlying assumption, will he accept that there is a fallacy in the assumption itself'? It assumes that all hon. Members attach the same degree of importance to Questions, but the fact is that while some Members prefer to use other methods to tackle problems and table Questions only as a last resort, others regard Questions as the first step in anything that they undertake. The right hon. Gentleman's statement and the conclusion that he has drawn are therefore based upon a fallacy.

Mr. Prior: That may be so, but everyone knows that in the last few years the number of Members who have adopted the procedure of Questions as the first rather than the last resort has increased enormously. I think that the new method will enable more hon. Members to get a chance of an early Question.
Ten sitting days, rather than a week, have been taken as the basis for the ration, to provide more flexibility for those Members who wish to concentrate their questioning on Departments closely following one another on the rota. It must, of course, be a matter of judgment what precise ration we adopt, and this is the subject of an amendment with which I shall deal later.
Finally, I remind the House that this rationing proposal is put forward as a sessional experiment. We can thus see, suggest, how it works out in practice. If it is not successful we should not suggest that it should be repeated, but I think that we can try it.
Moreover, I suggest that any alleged restriction on the rights of Members to question Ministers will be more than compensated for by the proposed new right, which the Government also recommend to the House, that Members should in future be able to insist on getting their

replies to a Written Question on a specific date. I think that that change proposed by the Procedure Committee is long overdue, and I recommend to the House that it should be embodied straight away in our Standing Orders. I hope, however, that hon. Members will recognise that if they make an excessive number of their Written Questions "priority" Questions they may sometimes have to be given holding answers.

Sir Gilbert Longden: Before leaving Oral Questions, I wonder whether my right hon. Friend would say something for the record about the method which decides the order in which Members' Questions appear on the Order Paper.

Mr. Prior: Is my lion. Friend referring to the way that they are drawn out of the printer's hat, or to the rationing?

Sir Gilbert Longden: Not to rationing—to the former.

Mr. Prior: To the actual printing?

Sir Gilbert Longden: To the ballot.

Mr. Prior: I do not think that I have much to say on that subject. If my hon. Friend is not satisfied with the way it is done, that, again, is something we can look at but, from what I have heard recently, it seems to me that it is done in the fairest possible way.

Sir Gilbert Longden: I am sorry to interrupt my right hon. Friend again. I was expressing curiosity, not dissatisfaction.

Mr. Prior: I do not know the answer either. I have always taken it that a a certain hour—I forget whether it is at 10 o'clock—

Mr. English: The first batch of Questions goes to the printers at 4 o'clock.

Mr. Prior: I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman. They are all put into a bag, and as the printer comes to set up the type, or whatever he does, he takes one out. It is a purely chance business, but I shall have that checked during the evening and let my hon. Friend and the House know.
The Government also think it desirable, as recommended by the Select Committee, that Mr. Speaker should be empowered to ask the Table Office to take


a fresh look at the subsidiary rules governing the acceptability of Questions, and that the opportunity should be taken to cut out any dead wood.
The Government recommend to the House the proposals made in paragraph 7 of the report for a more regular review of the classes of Questions which Ministers have indicated they are not prepared to answer, and also the recommendation that Mr. Speaker should no longer feel bound to follow individual previous rulings in deciding whether to allow a Question to be asked after Private Notice.

Mr. Tam Dalyell: What does the right hon. Gentleman mean by "dead wood" in this context? To what is he referring?

Mr. Prior: If the hon. Gentleman reads those paragraphs of the report he will find that there are a number of words which are automatically added by the Table Office when putting down certain Questions because they have been, as it were, written into the record for many years. Quite a few of the sentences and words are no longer regarded as being necessary or proper, and that is the kind of dead wood that we could cut out. I know that the hon. Gentleman does not believe in asking long Questions, or long supplementary questions, and that may be of some help to him.

Mr. John Brewis: Under the heading of dead wood, will my right hon. Friend cut out such questions as "Will the Prime Minister visit Saudi Arabia?", which are tabled in order to get in a supplementary question on Aberdeen?

Mr. Tam Dalyell: May I say, without being unduly boastful or complacent, that if everyone's questions were like mine there would he no need for this debate or for rationing Questions.

Mr. Prior: Fortunately, or unfortunately, we are not all alike.
The Government also accept the conclusions of the Select Committee with regard to the preparation of Questions by civil servants and, in particular, the recommendation that it should not be the rôle of the Government machine to seek to redress the party balance on Questions on the Order Paper and that civil servants should not in future be asked to prepare

Questions which have this object. Instructions to Departments are being issued accordingly.
I emphasise to the House that this does not imply that the Government consider that the actions taken by the Ministers in the Department of the Environment over the incidents which gave rise to the setting up of this Select Committee were in any way contrary to existing rules. There are no such rules. But the Government accept that in the interests of Question Time generally there ought to be such a rule in future. They hope, therefore, it will be recognised that in doing so the Government are acknowledging their responsibility to the House in giving a lead towards giving more Members a better opportunity to get answers to genuine Questions.
The acceptance of this recommendation by the Government does not imply a view that the Civil Service should in some way be impartial as between Government and Opposition. The impartiality of the Civil Service lies in the fact that it is equally the servant of any Government of whichever party. It is, and remains, the rôle of the Civil Service to be freely at the disposal of Ministers, unless there are clear precedents or rules against a particular form of assistance.

Mr. J. T. Price: Before the right hon. Gentleman leaves the point about liberalising this section of the rules and procedures will he say whether his advice to the House covers the situation where a Minister who has been having a thin time scatters a few bits of bait around the House by getting Members to sponsor Questions which will produce answers which show him up in a favourable light? I am not making a party point, because this works on both sides. Is it not time that we did something about the sponsored Question?

Mr. Prior: I do not think that we could do anything about it, because it is entirely up to the Member. No Member has to accept a planted Question from a Minister if he does not wish to do so. What the report makes clear, and what the Government make clear, is that there should be no assistance from the Civil Service in, as it were, trying to aid a Minister to fill the Order Paper with Questions on a particular subject in order to balance other Questions, and so on.
As regards the other proposals made by the Select Committee, the Government do not believe that a Friday Question Time is generally necessary or welcome to hon. Members, but again this is the subject of an amendment which we can discuss later. The effectiveness of Question Time depends on the opportunity that it provides for all Members to participate, to probe and to harry with supplementaries. But I shall leave that to be dealt with later.
Prime Minister's Question Time is another feature of Questions to which the Select Committee has clearly given a good deal of attention. There is a widespread feeling that the House is not at present making the best use of these occasions, and the Select Committee particularly concerned itself with the growing use of "vague" and frequently trivial Questions addressed to the Prime Minister, related to visits and speeches, which are designed rather to conceal than to make apparent the real point the questioner has in mind.
The Government believe that the solution to this problem of the nature and importance of Prime Minister's Question Time lies primarily in the hands of Members themselves. They do, however, support the two suggestions made by the Select Committee that Members might, in tabling Questions to the Prime Minister about ministerial speeches, indicate the particular aspect of the speech with which they are concerned; and that in dealing with Questions to the Prime Minister, Mr. Speaker should in future exercise his discretion in limiting the number of supplementary questions arising from identical Questions to the Prime Minister, irrespective of when the Questions were originally tabled.
The Government do not, however, accept the recommendation made by the Select Committee, and supported in another amendment that we shall deal with later, that Prime Minister's Question Time on Tuesday should be extended by a quarter of an hour.
Finally, on this Report, perhaps I should mention the proposals made by the Select Committee in paragraph 30 about the Question rota. Whilst the Government do not consider that it would be appropriate to sub-divide by subject matter Questions addressed to the major

Departments, the proposal that Questions to myself, the Attorney-General and the Minister for the Civil Service should in future come on at a particular time will be carefully considered through the usual channels when the rota is next reviewed.
It is the Government's hope that if the motions are acceptable to the House, and with the proviso I stated at the beginning of my speech, they will provide the basis for a real improvement in the usefulness of Question Time.
I turn to the Second Report of the Select Committee on Procedure last Session, dealing with the arrangements for debates on Consolidated Fund Bills and with ministerial statements.
The Government's general view on the arrangements for debates for Consolidated Fund Bills is essentially that these are matters which should be determined by the wishes of Private Members. The proposals made by the Procedure Committee for the time-tabling of such debates seem, however, in the Government's view, to be in the general interests of the House.
As Members will be well aware, the present arrangement for these annual debates is that they are open-ended, both with regard to the length of the debates as a whole and in respect of the debates on each particular topic. Because of this uncertainty over timing, and the resultant frequent late withdrawal of topics, it is often complained that Members have little or no idea when a particular topic will come on, and that they therefore waste a great deal of time waiting about.
The Procedure Committee's proposed remedy for this is that whilst balloting for topics should continue, there should in future be a definite overall "cut-off time" for these debates, and that Mr. Speaker should allocate time within this overall limit to each debate on a particular topic, depending on his judgment of the importance of the topic concerned, and the evidence he has of the number of Members wishing to speak.
The overall timetable proposed by the Select Committee for the normal three annual debates is accordingly that the winter and July debates would commence at the normal time and conclude at 5 a.m.; and that the March debate would end at 1 a.m. I can give no undertaking about the provision of Government time


for these debates or about longer notice as to when they will take place. All these new arrangements for Consolidated Fund Bill debates would be initially on an experimental basis.

Mr. Nigel Spearing: Is the right hon. Gentleman saying that he cannot offer the succeeding Friday, which was the Committee's recommendation?

Mr. Prior: At present that is right. The Committee suggested that the debate should be adjourned at a certain time—

Sir Robin Turton: It is a little more than that. My right hon. Friend's predecessor gave the Committee an assurance that he would be ready to give one Government Friday, although he was doubtful whether he could give more than one. It must be borne in mind that the Committee recommended that a Government Friday should be given on only two occasions, and that on the spring Supplementary Estimates there would be no question of resuming the debate on a Friday.

Mr. Prior: This is a question of trying to make available as much parliamentary time as we can. The cut-off period chosen, five o'clock in the morning, allows a pretty considerable length of time for debate.

Mr. English: Five hours less, on average.

Mr. Prior: That is if the debates go on until 10 o'clock in the morning, but many of them have ended before that. I believe that is not an unreasonable cut-off time, but I shall listen to what hon. Members say in the course of the evening.

Mr. Robert Mellish: I was one of those who gave evidence. I have always wondered why, in approaching the question of the Consolidated Fund Bill debates, we do not take account of the staff of the House, the Chair, the clerks, the police and the restaurant people, and do not conduct ourselves in a rather more dignified way. I am bewildered that we did not support the principle—and that the Committee did not accept it—of adjourning the debate at, say, one o'clock in the morning, then starting it again at a reasonable hour, say 8 o'clock in the morning, and going on for four hours. That would appear to me to make for a reasonably organised debate. The right

hon. Gentleman is saying that the debate should be cut off at five o'clock. What an unreasonable hour to cut off!

Mr. Prior: We can reconsider the matter, but I seem to remember that the evidence showed that there was a good deal of opposition to cutting off and then resuming the debate the same morning. That possibility was not accepted by the Committee, but the suggestion of resuming on the Friday won a good deal of support. All this is set out in paragraph 18.
As regards the Procedure Committee's proposal in the same report for the introduction of a new category of ministerial written statements, the Government have already indicated, in my predecessor's written reply to my right hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Sir Robin Turton) on 3rd July, that on the whole they favoured this proposal. It is not, however, a proposal which the Government would wish to put forward to the House in the absence of all-party agreement. This has not proved possible.
Nor do the Government propose to recommend to the House the Committee's proposal that there should be special provision in Standing Orders to enable ministerial statements to be made exceptionally at 7 p.m. or at the conclusion of Public Business. Such provision would tend to undermine the certainty of Public Business. In cases of grave national emergency suitable ad hoc arrangements could be made, and I think I am right in saying always have been made when the need arose.
Perhaps I should also mention recommendation (10). The Government consider that the consequential risk of eroding the traditional certainty of the break of business at 10 p.m. outweighs the advantage of making provisions for "injury time" when ministerial statements run on before 4 p.m. on days when Private Members' motion half days are followed by opposed Private Business.
The Third Report from the Select Committee on Procedure last Session also dealt with another question which, like the arrangements for Consolidated Fund Bill debates, is more a House than a Government matter—namely, the rights of Members to attend meetings of Select Committees to which they have not been appointed.
The Committee was invited to consider this question by my right hon. Friend the present Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, when Leader of the House, because it was felt by the Government that the existing rules of the House were undesirably uncertain in this field, and that there was no clear guidance either for Select Committees or Members.
The Procedure Committee's Report confirms the ambiguities in the present rules that my predecessor no doubt had in mind—in particular, the uncertain degree of obligation which a Member has to withdraw from a Select Committee, if requested to do so and whether the relevant passages in Erskine May apply both to meetings of Select Committees when evidence is being taken and meetings when a Select Committee is deliberating.
The Procedure Committee, therefore, recommends to the House two clear rules—that Members who are not appointed to a Select Committee should not be able to attend its deliberations and other informal meetings; and that, with regard to meetings of Select Committees when evidence is being taken, Select Committees and sub-committees should be empowered to exclude Members by resolution.
It would be inappropriate for the Government to express any view on these recommendations other than it would seem that a clarification of the existing position is desirable in the interests of the House.
The motion on the Order Paper, however, provides an opportunity for the House to express its view on the particular recommendations proposed by the Procedure Committee.
I turn finally to the Report of the Joint Committee on Delegated Legislation under the chairmanship of Lord Brooke. The House will be aware that this Committee was set up last Session to look into the whole question of delegated legislation and to consider ways in which the parliamentary scrutiny of delegated legislation might be improved.
An aspect with which the Government were particularly concerned was to see how more time might be found for the debating of Prayers against negative instruments in view of the many other pressures for time on the Floor of the

House. As hon. Members will know, it is a regular feature of Business Questions for the Leader of the House to have to explain why it has not proved possible to find time for a particular Prayer, and under present procedures if Prayers are not debated on the Floor they cannot be debated at all.
In its Report the Joint Committee makes two principal proposals, each concerned with the setting up of a new parliamentary committee. It proposes, first, the establishment of a joint scrutiny committee of both Houses to check the technical propriety, including the vires, of statutory instruments; and secondly, that a Commons Standing Committee should be set up to consider the "merits" of stautory instruments referred to it by the House.
I would certainly accept the view that the Joint Scrutiny Committee must reflect the balance of parties existing in the House of Commons at any one time, otherwise I do not think it would be acceptable to this House that it should be a joint committee.
As I have already informed the House in a written reply to my right hon Friend the Member for Harrogate (Mr. Ramsden) the Government recommend both these main proposals.
I believe that the setting up of the proposed joint scrutiny committee would avoid the present undesirable duplication of functions between the present Statutory Instruments Committee of the House of Commons and the Special Orders Committee of the House of Lords, and the proposed Commons "merits" committee will, in the Government's view, provide a valuable and much-needed additional forum for the consideration of delegated legislation.
In case there are Members who fear that the establishment of a committee for debating Statutory Instruments on a "take note" motion would mean that major delegated legislation might no longer be debated on the Floor, I emphasise that affirmative orders would go to the "merits" committee only if there were agreement to this through the usual channels and provided that 20 Members or more did not object. Otherwise affirmative orders would, as at present, automatically have to be taken on the Floor.
As regards negative instruments against which Prayers had been tabled, these could be referred to the committee only if 20 Members or more did not object. Since, in the case of negative instruments, the effect of such blocking might otherwise be that the Prayers were not debated at all, either on the Floor or in the new committee, the Government propose to accept the tentative additional suggestion put forward by the Joint Committee that the 11.30 p.m. rule might be modified so that a negative instrument could be debated on a "take note" motion at any hour, however late, subject to not more than one such debate being permitted on any one night, with a time limit of 1½ hours.
The Government do not, however, recommend to the House the other proposals made by the joint committee for securing additional time to debate negative instruments on the Floor of the House either by the setting aside of particular days or by the reserving of time between 10 p.m. and 11.30 p.m. on Supply Days for Prayers.
I think I ought also to draw the attention of the House to those particular detailed aspects of the joint committee's recommendations which the Government do not commend to the House. The first of these is the proposal that the Standing Orders of both Houses should provide that no motion for an affirmative order should be moved until it has been considered and reported on by the proposed joint scrutiny committee.
As regards this House, the Government will continue to do all they can to ensure that a joint scrutiny committee would have the opportunity to examine affirmative orders before they were taken on the Floor. But, in the Government's view, there must inevitably arise occasional circumstances, either of extreme urgency or, for example, at the beginning of a Session before committees are established, when an absolute requirement of this kind would be unacceptable.
The Government are, therefore, unable to accept this proposal so far as the House of Commons is concerned.

Mr. English: I am not familiar with the procedure of another place. However, is it not the case that the House of Lords already has this rule and, therefore, that the rule must already apply to the Gov-

ernment? Therefore, although I understand exactly what the Leader of the House said, I do not see why it should be true if it is already imposed on the Government by another place.

Mr. Prior: It is not imposed on the Government in the House of Commons. In other words, we can table an affirmative resolution or a motion can go down for debate here straight away before it has been to the Statutory Instruments Committee. As I understand it, before that affirmation can be put on to the Order Paper in the House of Lords it has to go to its special orders committee. Therefore, the two practices are different.

Mr. Latham: Either the Leader of the House has not grasped the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English) was making or I have not grasped the answer given by the Leader of the House. The case that the Leader of the House was making against the joint committee's proposal was that the Government took the view that there would be circumstances of urgency in which this would be an obstruction to their carrying out their task. The point that my hon. Friend was making was that the Government are already subject to that obstruction in another place and if that has not proved an insuperable obstacle in the House of Lords why should it be so in the House of Commons.

Mr. Prior: I see what the hon. Gentleman is getting at. I presume that because it has not been the practice of another place, with one or two exceptions, in the last 50 years to vote down Statutory Instruments it is always considered of much greater importance that this House should get them on to the Order Paper more quickly than is perhaps the case in the other place. I will have another look at that in the course of the evening, but that is probably the explanation. Often we want to get it down on to the Order Paper at once or at the beginning of the Session. It is not of such great importance for their Lordships to do so and therefore there is time for it to go to their Lordships' scrutiny committee.

Mr. English: In Session 1967–68 the orders considered by the Lords' committee and drawn to the attention of the House of Lords were less than 20 per cent.—10 out of 56. If that is what the Leader of the House means by a very


small number, it is not what normally would be said to be the case.

Mr. Prior: I did not mean that point. I meant their Lordships disagreeing with the House of Commons in a statutory instrument passed on the Floor of this House. I will have another look at this during the course of the debate and perhaps when I reply, with the leave of the House, I can say something else about it.
The second Government reservation concerns the proposal that all instruments open to consideration by the proposed joint scrutiny committee, and to which the committee had drawn the special attention of the House, should come automatically within the scope of the proposed "merits" committee and should receive precedence in their consideration by that committee.
In the Government's view, this would be inappropriate. The rôles of the two proposed new parliamentary committees would be quite separate, and there seems no reason why an instrument which has been drawn to the attention of the House on the basis of technical impropriety should also have to be considered by a committee which would be concerned with the "merits" of the instrument.
Subject to these two subsidiary points, however, the Government commend the establishment of the two new proposed committees to the House in the belief that they will represent a considerable improvement in the parliamentary machinery for the scrutiny of delegated legislation.
I think we must leave the chairmanship of the joint committee for the committee to decide in due course.
Overall I believe that the recommendations covered in these various reports represent quite a substantial package of procedural reform. In particular, if acceptable to the House, the recommendations made by the Joint Committee on Delegated Legislation would mark a significant extension of the opportunities for the parliamentary scrutiny of delegated legislation.
Procedure, although a necessary and important feature of our parliamentary life, is not a subject which normally warms the blood although it has certainly excited one or two hon. Members tonight. It is important that our procedures should

be as good as we can devise if we are to make the best possible use of the limited time available to us.
It is, therefore, all the more important that the House should recognise and pay tribute—as I do now on its behalf—to those Members of the Procedure Committee and of the other committees concerned who have devoted so much time and thought to the study of the issues which we are considering today.

7.42 p.m.

Mr. Edward Short: May I first of all associate myself with what the right hon. Gentleman said in his closing words when he paid tribute to all the Members who have served on the Select Committee and the Joint Committee?
Secondly, I must register a protest about the short notice that we have had for these motions. These are complicated and some are rather obscure. They were put on the Order Paper only last Thursday, which gives inadequate time to scrutinise them properly, to try to collect the voices and to get some kind of agreement. I take the view that this is essentially a House of Commons matter and the views that I will be expressing will be largely my own, although I have taken the trouble to consult a number of my hon. Friends.
I do not agree with a ministerial chairman on the Procedure Committee. I believe that the chairman ought always to be a back bencher. This is not a party matter, but we are extremely grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for what he said about listening to the views which are put tonight and, where a proposal encounters opposition, promising to take it back. We are grateful to him for bringing these proposals forward. We feel that he could have gone very much further in one or two important respects which go to the heart of parliamentary democracy and individual freedom. Some of the proposed diminutions in the rights of Members are also extremely important.
I will follow the pattern which he adopted and comment on the proposals in the order of their appearance in the "take note" motion. First of all I will deal with the Select Committee on Parliamentary Questions. We all recollect the rather shameful circumstances in which this Committee was set up. There was


a quite unprecedented use of civil servants in the Department of the Environment to prepare a mass of Parliamentary Questions which were then farmed out to Conservative Members. The right hon. Gentleman left this to the last of his comments on Parliamentary Questions.
There is a difference between the inspired Question which we all understand and which is a kind of low key ministerial statement, and a bank of Questions prepared by civil servants. The report says on this:
It is not the rôle of the Government machine to seek to redress the Parliamentary balance of Questions on the Order Paper and civil servants should not in future be asked to prepare Questions which have this object.
It is a great pity that this was not stated as a recommendation. It is simply in the report as an opinion. I believe it should be firmer than this and should be in the form of a recommendation.
To digress from my pattern for one moment, I want to mention two other expressions of opinion. The first deals with Members asking about ministerial speeches. As far as I can see, it has no effect at all. What it says is that Members may or may not include in their Questions a precise indication of the subject matter in a ministerial speech to which they wish to refer. If I understand the English language, the sum total effect of that is nil. Similarly, in paragraph 25 there is a suggestion that Mr. Speaker should be rather tougher on identical Questions placed on the Order Paper. I have always felt that it was an abuse when large numbers of hon. Members copied another hon. Member's Question simply to be called for a supplementary question. I welcome this, even though it is only in the form of a suggestion.
Paragraph 7 deals with the refusal of Ministers to answer a Question and proposes two quite sensible changes in the absolute rule concerning Questions which the Government refuse to answer. We should be clear that the power to refuse to answer Questions is an extremely powerful protection against legitimate inquiry by Members and therefore it is high time it was modified. I welcome these changes. I wish that they had gone a little further.
Paragraph 8 gives Mr. Speaker the right to modify subsidiary rules—not the

principal rules—on Questions. There is a great multiplicity of them and there is no doubt that all these rules applied by the Table Office—and we have all encountered them many times—result in large numbers of Questions being excluded from the Order Paper during any Session. We welcome the placing of that new right in the hands of Mr. Speaker and the Table Office and we hope that they will use it.
Paragraph 10 follows a similar theme. It says that Mr. Speaker need not feel bound by previous decisions so long as Questions ask for information or action which are within the responsibility of the Government and are not in conflict with the proposed new rules. It is difficult to see why on 26th June the Chairman used his casting vote against a proposal by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South West (Mr. George Cunningham) which, had it been carried, would have swept away all the accumulated dross or dead wood in our rules about Questions. I am sorry that the proposal was not carried in place of all this.
Paragraph 28 deals with another longstanding grievance of Members, the difficulty of getting Written Answers when Members want them. I very much welcome the priority system for Written Answers. I support its immediate inclusion in the Standing Orders of the House. Paragraph 29 lays down that Mr. Speaker is no longer bound by previous decisions in allowing Private Notice Questions. Speaking personally, I am less sure about this. It is not a bad thing to have some certainty about what is and what is not allowed in such Questions. As a back bencher I often found—this is no criticism of the Chair—that the decisions of the Chair in this respect were incomprehensible. However, that is the proposal and I have some doubts about that.
There were proposals not accepted to which the right hon. Gentleman has referred. The first one was for Friday Questions. I realise that there are two points of view about this. Speaking as a provincial Member for the past 21 years, I always try to get back to my constituency on a Friday and I feel that a Friday Question time would be less than satisfactory. Also, of course, Ministers are in charge of large Departments, and


Ministers have got to get round the country. When I was Secretary of State for Education I always used Fridays to visit schools and colleges all over the country. I think it is essential that Ministers should get out of their offices at least one day a week. Indeed, I would lock up every Minister's office one day a week, and make Ministers go round the country.

Mr. Marcus Lipton: On the subject of an hour for Questions on a Friday, the suggestion also is that only two Ministers would be liable to be questioned during that hour on a Friday, so that the idea of having a whole lot of Ministers pinned down in London on a Friday is not correct.

Mr. Short: Well, I said I thought there were certainly two points of view about this, and I imagine that we polarise geographically on this according to where our constituencies are.
The other proposal was about Prime Minister's Questions. On reflection, we get so little out of our present two periods of Prime Minister's Questions that I cannot really see that another quarter of an hour would make very much difference.
On paragraph 19, the rationing of Questions, this certainly simplifies the present rather complicated demoting system and it means a Sessional entitlement to about 130 Questions on the basis of eight in ten days. Again, there are two views about this. I think it is a good thing. I realise that some hon. Members will not agree with me and I hope that all hon. Members will express their views about it.
I turn briefly to the Consolidated Fund Bills. This, again, is a vitally important matter for Private Members. It is not a Government matter; it is not an Opposition matter; it is a Private Members' matter. So I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will listen to the views we have about this.
Second Reading debates on Consolidated Fund Bills are a contemporary example of the operation of the fundamental principle of the redress of grievances before Supply is granted to the Crown. Consolidated Fund Bills are founded upon Supply resolutions agreed by the House for the purposes set out in

the Estimates, in Supplementary Estimates and Votes on Account which make good excess Votes, and there are three of them. One is the winter Consolidated Fund Bill, another is the March one, which is devoted to defence and Special Estimates, and the third is the July one. The winter and July Second Reading debates are very wide debates because the content of the Bills is wide.
Since the Procedure Committee of 1966, Second Reading debates on those Bills have been left entirely to Private Members. So we have had five years' experience, and we can look back and see how it has worked. Certainly some very long debates on wide subjects have detracted from the constitutional principle here—in my view the opportunity for a large number of Members to air their grievances. The report itself gives an example of five out of ten debates on wide Bills lasting over 16 hours. Many of the subjects chosen by ballot have not been reached, and, of course, there is great uncertainty about when a Member's subject will be reached as well as about whether it will be reached.
So there has been dissatisfaction, but the dissatisfaction has been almost entirely about the unpredictability of debate and not about its going through the night, as the report says. I think nobody complains about this because the Members concerned, the Members who have drawn places in the ballot, are the only Members who stay; and they stay and are willing to stay. So I do not really agree with the report when it says that there has been dissatisfaction about that.

Mr. English: I agree with my right hon. Friend. Would he also agree that this complaint has arisen primarily since the days of a previous Speaker who off his own bat decided to have a ballot and that there has not been any decision by this House to have a ballot until now when this motion is before us tonight?

Mr. Short: That may be relevant. However, after five years it seems to me quite reasonable to have a look at the matter and to see how it has been working.
The proposal is that there should be a cut-off time not only for the whole debate but for each subject. I welcome the cutoff time for different subjects. I think


that that is reasonable, and I think that it is quite reasonable to leave it in the hands of the Speaker as to the time devoted to each subject according to his estimate of the importance of the subject. I think it is a quite unreasonable and a quite unnecessary and a quite unwarranted diminution of the rights of Members to terminate the debate at 5 a.m. Why in heaven's name do we need to do that? I am not very concerned about the March Bill. This is mainly on defence, and my view is that we have in this House far too many debates on defence, compared with the debates we have on education. I hope that this can be looked at, for I think we spend far too much of our time on that. That is quite unacceptable to me that there should be a cut-off of the whole debate, although I am in favour of apportioning the time for the subjects.
Among the proposals not accepted was one about written ministerial statements. If I understood the right hon. Gentleman aright, the Government agreed to it but did not put it down. I do not agree with it. I think even the inspired Question, which my hon. Friend the Member for Westhoughton (Mr. J. T. Price) dislikes, is better than that. I am sure that Ministers would take advantage of it to get publicity for some proposal or another, without any accountability to the House.
A second one was that extraordinary ministerial statements be made at 7 p.m. or at the end of public business. I do not see that there is any need for this because at moments of crisis the House always finds its procedure flexible enough to find a way for such statements, and we should be very careful about detracting from the certainty of public business, as this would. Therefore, I am glad that this has not been included.
Thirdly, I come to the right of Members to attend Select Committees when they are not appointed to them. Certainly there are ambiguities here which might lead to the embarrassment of Members concerned, but this proposal really does go much too far. It gives power to individual Committees to exclude the rest of Members of Parliament, a power which they should not have. I think it is quite unnecessary. Again, it detracts from the rights of Members. I hope that the right

hon. Gentleman will feel that he need not press this one.

Mr. J. T. Price: I have spent a great deal of time performing in a modest capacity in Select Committees. May I ask my right hon. Friend to reflect on this, not being dogmatic at all about it myself? There are in Select Committee many occasions when many of us, as working Members of a Committee, feel that it would be desirable not only to admit Members but to make the Committee open to the Press as well. The difficulty is that there are many occasions when witnesses being examined or cross-examined are not willing to give evidence except in camera. This is the difficult thing. I would say that many people like myself who have done a lot of work on these Committees would much prefer them to be as open as possible, but within limits. If they are open, and we declare them open, they are open not only to the Press but to all of our fellow Members of the House, and this is a situation I would like to encourage.

Mr. Short: I certainly think that there is a problem, and that is why I said that there are sometimes ambiguities and embarrassments, but I do not think that the two rules proposed are the way out. Committees should not have a blanket power to exclude other Members of Parliament.
One of the most substantial and important parts of the proposals deals with delegated legislation. The scrutiny of and the right to challenge delegated legislation are fundamental to democracy. Minister-made law or, more often, Civil Service-made law is increasing at an alarming rate. Under this Government I am sorry to say that the House is gradually losing its power to scrutinise delegated legislation. During the last Session over and over again we either were not able to debate important Prayers or we debated them out of time. I do not agree with debating them out of time. The House must have the right to reverse a Statutory Instrument if it is so minded.
The Joint Committee under Lord Brooke proposed two committees—first, a joint committee to scrutinise Statutory Instruments and to check the technical propriety, including the vires, of the instruments. That may avoid duplication between the Statutory Instruments


Committee in the House of Commons and the Special Orders Committee in the House of Lords, but I am extremely apprehensive about the proposal.
Page xxi shows how the Lords have dealt with Statutory Instruments, from which it will be seen that the House of Lords always draws more orders to the attention of the House when there is a Labour Government. That makes me apprehensive.
I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman has accepted the recommendation that the chairman should, after the first appointment, be entirely in the hands of the committee. Before my right hon. and hon. Friends and I can accept this proposal we must be assured that the chairman will always be an Opposition Member from the House of Commons. Secondly, we must be assured that the strength of the House of Lords element on the committee will be pro rata to the strength of the parties in the House of Commons. Those are the minimum terms on which we could agree to the joint committee.

Mr. Prior: I made a special note. What I said was that we must reflect the balance of the parties in the House of Commons.

Mr. English: I think that the right hon. Gentleman did say that, but he did not say anything about the chairman.

Mr. Prior: No, I did not.

Mr. Short: The right hon. Gentleman has met the point, but we must insist on the other before the proposal can be agreed.
It is proposed that there should be a House of Commons Committee to consider the merits of Statutory Instruments. The right hon. Gentleman said that it would provide a much needed additional forum for the consideration of delegated legislation. I am not sure that it is the right kind of forum. Affirmative orders are only to go to the committee if there is agreement through the usual channels and if 20 or more hon. Members do not object. Negative instruments—that is, Prayers—presumably would go to the committee without the usual channels provision unless 20 or more hon. Members object. These proposals make it more difficult for hon. Members to pray against delegated legislation. They simply erect

more barriers to hon. Members carrying out a vital constitutional function. In the last Session the Government put all kinds of barriers in our way. It has been virtually impossible to debate Prayers. To have to rely on 20 hon. Members standing up would make this even more difficult.

Mr. Ronald Bell: Will the right hon. Gentleman deal with a point which commends itself to me? In 20 years I cannot remember any occasion on which the Government have been defeated on a Prayer in the House, whereas upstairs in Committee I can conceive of this happening more easily and so making our scrutiny much more effective.

Mr. Short: It seems to be a sure and certain path to authoritarianism to say that because the Government have not been defeated in 20 years we must therefore abolish the rule. Hon. Members must retain the right to debate these matters and, if they think fit, to vote against them.

Mr. Albert Booth: Will my right hon. Friend look at this in the context of page xlv, paragraph (d), where it is made clear that the only motion that could be passed or defeated on the consideration of merits in Standing Committee is the motion, That the Committee take note of the order? As I understand the recommendation, there could be no possibility of the Government being defeated in Committee upstairs on any Statutory Instrument. It would be helpful if this point could be clarified.

Mr. Short: That is my understanding. That is why I said it was not a good additional forum for debating Statutory Instruments.
The right hon. Gentleman went on to say something which alarmed me. He said that the effect of blocking might otherwise be that Prayers are not debated at all. Why ever not? Is he threatening the House? Is he saying that if hon. Members block a Prayer going to Committee the Prayer will not be debated either in Committee or in the House? Surely the House has a constitutional right to seek to annul these orders? The only danger of their not being debated arises from the chaotic state of the Government's business.
Another major weakness of these two committees is the absence of mechanism to get the Statutory Instrument back from the Committee to the Floor of the House. If my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow-in-Furness (Mr. Booth) catches your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I have no doubt that he will develop these points, because he is an expert on delegated legislation.
There is also a proposal that the 11.30 p.m. rule should be modified so that a negative instrument can be debated on a "take note" motion at any hour, however late, for a limited 1½ hours. Hon. Members who have been in the House for some years will know that this is putting back the clock in more senses than one. I regard this as a retrograde step. We used to sit debating Prayers until the early hours of the morning, almost every night. That is why the rule was changed. I hope very much that this proposal will not be pressed.
I profoundly regret that the Government have not accepted the Opposition proposal for setting aside a date for debating Prayers. We have a right to debate Prayers. It is a fundamental safeguard of democracy against bureaucracy, and bureaucracy today is much more dangerous than autocracy.

Mr. Latham: Will my right hon. Friend deal more closely with the "take note" concept? A Statutory Instrument which is referred to the committee with 20 Members not objecting can be debated only on a "take note" basis. My right hon. Friend has referred to this point in the context of the house debating an instrument on a "take note" motion. Will he deal with the point whether there can be any significance in a "take note" motion other than the exchange of views. Presumably, whether a "take note" motion is carried or defeated can make no material difference. It therefore appears that the existence of the "take note" procedure either in the House or in Committee offers no definitive safeguard against bureaucracy.

Mr. Short: That is the logical result of the view put by the hon. and learned Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. Ronald Bell). He said that it was to allow Members to exchange views. I put it more crudely and say that it is simply to allow Members to get it off their chests

and blow off steam, and it has no effect whatever. That is what I obect to. I object to the right being taken away from an hon. Member or from this House to annul an order. It may nominally be made by a Minister, but in effect it is made by a civil servant. It is a law that is binding on everybody and the House must have the right to annul it. That right must not be removed. We are not satisfied with a motion simply "to take note".

Mr. Ronald Bell: I agree with that view. I should like to see a Committee upstairs with the power to annul. I agree that a "take note" motion is useless, but I believe that it is more valuable to have the power to annul in a Committee upstairs than it is to have that power on the Floor of the House, because upstairs the party system does not operate in quite the same way.

Mr. Short: I am grateful to the hon. and learned Gentleman for saying that. This shows that if we were given an opportunity to discuss these matters among ourselves we could reach agreement on this kind of proposal.
I thank the Leader of the House for bringing these matters forward. Some are acceptable; others are quite unacceptable. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will not press those which are unacceptable since they should all be by agreement. I hope that in future the Government will allow a minimum of at least two weeks after publication of motions to see what amendments arise and to try to reach agreement among all members of the House. This is not a Government or an Opposition matter, but it is a matter for every Member of the House of Commons.

8.12 p.m.

Mr. Albert Booth: I should like to address my remarks only to delegated legislation. I hope that it will not be considered discourteous if I do not deal with other important matters with which the Select Committee on Procedure has dealt. I am restricting myself to the Report of the Joint Committee on Delegated Legislation because it is a subject with which I have been particularly concerned for some time.
To see the problem of delegated legislation in perspective we must first note


the change which has taken place both in the volume and the nature of delegated legislation in recent years. The Joint Committee's report refers to the number of Statutory Instruments made in the Session 1970–71. In that Session there were 151 affirmative instruments, 765 negative instruments and 556 general instruments—a total of 1,472 Statutory Instruments in a single year. I have taken a year in which there was an enormous volume of such instruments, but we cannot envisage any year in which there will not be many hundreds of pieces of delegated legislation laid before this House.
We must first ask ourselves how we should deal with this legislative volume. The orginal procedure as laid down in Standing Orders to deal with delegated legislation was conceived at a time when such a volume of delegated legislation would have been unthinkable. We must also recognise that the very nature of delegated legislation has changed. Whereas originally delegated legislation was regarded as a means of dealing with detailed points of administration which had to have legal effect, it has now become a very much more wide-ranging and flexible instrument. It can be used, and in recent years has been used, to bring about major changes of policy. The Leader of the House remembering his previous rôle will recall that it was by the use of delegated legislation that the Government changed their policy from the payment of food subsidies to the system of import levies. That major change of policy was implemented solely by delegated legislation, and it was done quite legally. Powers were laid down in earlier Agriculture Acts which made it possible for the Government to take such action.
I make no complaint on the grounds of legality. At one time such a major change of policy—through delegated legislation rather than through the normal governmental processes of planning and policy decision in this Chamber—would have been unthinkable. At present such a situation not only is possible but is a practice that is likely to grow. Therefore, it is even more important that the House has complete control over delegated legislation. If we study the subject carefully we see that the House of Commons, instead of increasing its control over

delegated legislation, has lost effective control as such legislation has grown in volume and importance.
Two significant changes in the Standing Orders in post-war years have resulted in a 1½ hour limitation on affirmative order debates and an 11.30 p.m. limit on negative instrument debates. It is quite clear that the most severe restriction, the 11.30 p.m. limit, has been in the area of legislation which has thrown up the greatest number of instruments—namely, negative instruments. There is no year in recent times in which there has not been a considerably greater number of negative orders than affirmative orders. Each time in Standing Committee on a Bill upstairs I suggest that certain matters should be subject to affirmative rather than negative procedures, the suggestion is strongly resisted by the Minister involved—with, I suspect, the enthusiastic support of his civil servants.
It is now possible to have a series of affirmative instruments put through the House in a day. Indeed the Government, if they are so minded, can put through a series of such instruments throughout the night. A Prayer must end at 11.30 p.m., and this means a maximum of only 1½ hours, but the Government, intentionally or otherwise, often arrange business so that it will eat into part, if not all, of that 1½ hours. Therefore, there is the greatest need for control of delegated legislation, particularly of the negative instrument.
Changes in Standing Orders over the years have cut down the amount of control in the hands of Members of the House of Commons. For this reason I am concerned about the Government's attitude to the recommendations of the Joint Committee on Delegated Legislation which would substantially increase the amount of time spent by the House on delegated legislation, particularly on negative instruments. If we pass the Government's motion on delegated legislation, two of the proposals will not become effective. Therefore, I trust that the Leader of the House will sense the mood of the House, as expressed in the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Central (Mr. Edward Short), that we do not wish to proceed any further without giving serious consideration to these matters.

Mr. Mellish: Is there not a further matter which should be put on record—a matter of which I have had experience in the last two years? This relates to the volume of negative resolutions and the fact that again and again Government business, quite properly, takes priority. By the time we have tabled a Prayer it is found to be out of time, and we then go to the Government to ask for a motion to be tabled to discuss the matter by affirmative order. But having tabled such a motion, it is then found to be irrelevant, and the order is usually in operation by the time one comes to pray against it. This makes a farce of democracy. Unless something is done to take hold of this situation and to bring these matters to the Floor of the House at the right time for proper discussion, any consideration of a negative order will become even more of a farce.

Mr. Booth: My right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) emphasises a crucial point on the question of control. It relates to the Government's attitude to the time made available in this House to deal with a prayer. As my right hon. Friend pointed out, all sorts of objections are raised when one attempts to discuss when a Prayer is to be debated. In reality what this amounts to is that the Government say that all sorts of other matters must take priority over a certain form of legislation. However, it is my view and that of the majority of working hon. Members that it is completely wrong, in a democracy, that this House's control of legislation should be set aside as being a matter which is not one of priority.
It does not matter to me whether it is called delegated legislation or primary legislation. The reality of the matter for the citizen and for our courts is that what appears in a Statutory Instrument is the law of the land just as much as what appears in an Act of Parliament. To say that there is no time in this House to deal with the law of the land is the very negation of the democratic process. But that is what has been happening increasingly in recent years. The Government have said that there is no time to deal with this legislation by the democratic process of a debate and vote in this House before it becomes law. Law which is not subject to the process is not democratic law and certainly is not

in accordance with the traditions of government that we have established in a way in which we rightly take pride.
It is fundamental that time must be granted. It is ridiculous to continue taking a growing volume of delegated legislation without an appropriate increase in the amount of time that this Chamber devotes to it. If we cannot find a way of dealing with primary legislation on the Floor of the House and taking a vote on it, we should send it upstairs. The Second Reading Committee is an example of legislation which has gone upstairs with the possibility of returning to this Chamber for a vote. If we found a means to do that with delegated legislation it would be understood. What will not be understood by those who look to us to protect their democratic rights is sending this legislation to a committee which can merely take note and do nothing else about it. That can never be an alternative to our law-making process.
I turn now to the proposal for a joint scrutiny committee. I take the view that all the affirmative and negative orders which are considered by this House should first have been considered by a scrutiny committee of this House. This is probably the appropriate occasion to make the complaint that we have no scrutiny committee operating in this Session. The Government have not chosen to set up the Select Committee on Statutory Instruments to consider all the hundreds of instruments which have so far been laid in this Session. Since this matter was not referred to by the Leader of the House, I can only assume that the Government do not intend that the Statutory Instruments which have been laid up until now should be subject to technical scrutiny.
I do not accept that it is not practicable to have technical scrutiny in advance of consideration by this House. This is the matter about which the Select Committee on Statutory Instruments set up last Session corresponded with the then Leader of the House. The Committee expressed the view that it attached such importance to having proper technical scrutiny in advance that it would be willing to meet virtually at 24 hours' notice at the start of a Session to subject an instrument to technical scrutiny before


it was considered on the Floor of the House.
The point has already been made that in the Lords instruments are subject to technical scrutiny anyway. That shows that it is a practicable proposition. Certainly it is practicable to have this scrutiny, and in any event it is a safeguard for the Government as well as for this House that an instrument should be subject to technical scrutiny before any decision is taken on its merits. In legislation of increasing complexity, and in view of the experiences that we have had in dealing with questions of vires and of what is a correct form of delegated legislation, this has become more and more important.

Mr. Latham: There are two observations that I wish to make to my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow-in-Furness (Mr. Booth). First, he will see that I am holding in my hand the multifarious copies of Statutory Instruments laid up to about the middle of last month. Any committee now appointed to examine them would have an almost impossible task to do a thorough job in the time. I regret as much as my hon. Friend and other hon. Members do the fact that no action has been taken by the Government until now. It looks as if all the opportunities both for scrutiny and for the House to attempt to exercise any surveillance over these instruments has gone by default. I hope that the Leader of the House will comment on that in the course of the debate.
The second point that I wish to put to my hon. Friend is that one can make a distinction between matters which are questions of vires and matters which are questions of merits. However, in view of my hon. Friend's experience as Chairman of the Select Committee on Statutory Instruments. I draw his attention to the difficulties which occur where merits appear to be confused with technical matters of propriety. Perhaps my hon. Friend will comment on the difficulty which has arisen over lorry drivers' hours. Previously there was a provision—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. E. L. Mallalieu): Order. The hon. Member for Paddington, North (Mr. Latham)

should not make a speech in an interjection.

Mr. Latham: I apologise, Mr. Deputy Speaker. May I be allowed two more sentences in order to make my point? Previously it was possible for the old Committee to say that an unexpected use was being made of powers. The Committee found such wide use being made of powers as to except the majority of vehicles from the provisions of the legislation.

Mr. Booth: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for highlighting this aspect of the problem of obtaining a proper relationship between correct technical scrutiny and the consideration of merits. The example that he has picked is one of the best that can be found. In the case of the lorry drivers' hours regulations, the original Act gave power to the Minister to lay regulations exempting certain activities in road haulage from the drivers hours' regulations.
It was the case—and I hope that it will continue to be the case—that the terms of reference of the joint scrutiny committee will be wide enough to draw attention to instances where an unusual use of power is made. In the case to which my hon. Friend the Member for Paddington, North (Mr. Latham) referred, a regulation was laid which exempted from the drivers' hours regulations all the carrying of materials to and from building and construction sites. It wiped out the safeguards of the drivers' hours regulations for many people involved in that industry.
That was a matter of unusual use of powers, and a matter which was reported by a Select Committee on Statutory Instruments. The fact that the Prayer or the consideration of merits did not subsequently take place was due to another failing which we will discuss tonight. The illustration to which my hon. Friend the Member for Paddington, North drew attention shows that if the merits of a particular instrument had been discussed, without having regard to the consideration of scrutiny, we would possibly have wasted a considerable amount of time. The issue of merit can lie very close to the issue of technical scrutiny in such cases.
I shall deal with the committee that would consider the merits of instruments


if the proposal before the House were put into effect. I take it from the Government's motion that they are opposed to the committee's considering, as a matter of priority Statutory Instruments to which the joint scrutiny committee has drawn special attention. If the Standing Committee for considering merits cannot give consideration to the instruments to which the joint scrutiny committee has drawn special attention, what is to happen to the reports in which they draw to the special attention of the House what they consider to be unusual use of powers? If a negative instrument is ultra vires, would it be the wish of the Government that this instrument on which the joint scrutiny committee reported should come straight back to the House and be considered as if it were affirmative? If that were so, I would be most ready to accept the proposition that such instruments should not go to a committee which will be concerned with merits. But nothing has been said tonight by the Leader of the House to indicate that they would give such preference to negative instruments to which the special attention of the House has been drawn by a joint scrutiny committee. In fact, indications have been rather the other way.
Therefore, in the absence of any indication by the Government that they will give some rights to Prayers against instruments to which the joint scrutiny committee has drawn special attention, the very least that we must be guaranteed is that such instruments will have some priority of consideration by the Standing Committee which deals with merits. This underlines the point, to which attention was drawn by my hon. Friend, of the necessity of having technical scrutiny taking place in advance of consideration of merits.
The most serious defect in the section of the report which deals with the committee on merits is the one to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Central drew attention—namely, that no mechanism is proposed for returning the instrument to the Floor of the House. That must be seen in the context of the committee's having no power to vote on anything but a motion to take note.
If it were to be proposed by the Leader of the House that the committee

should be able to vote whether to annul an instrument, there would be a different attitude towards the committee. The motion would be considered by a crowded House if that were to be the case. But it is proposed that the committee shall decide only whether to take note. In that case it is totally unsatisfactory to the House to accept these recommendations unless they are amended in such a way as to include a mechanism by which a Prayer can return to the Floor of the House.
An impossible position is being created for hon. Members. If an hon. Member is particularly concerned about a merit issue in a particular instrument, and he tables a Prayer upon it, he then has to decide whether he is to let that Prayer go to the committee or whether he is to alert 19 other hon. Members to oppose it. He has to weigh the matter carefully. By letting it go upstairs he is, in the last analysis, jeopardising his chances of the matter's being subject to a vote in the House of Commons. If he is serious in his Prayer and wishes, in the absence of a satisfactory reply, to press it to a Division, what is he to do? Is he to ask 19 other Members to join him in opposing the instrument's being sent upstairs? Or is it better to let it go upstairs, to attend the committee, as he would have the right to do, argue his case and say, "On the report of the committee upstairs I will have a better chance of this matter going back to the House and voted upon." But in the absence of any mechanism to return it to the House, he has an impossible dilemma.
The official channels will also have an impossible dilemma, because the Opposition may well be concerned to seek some amendment to an instrument. They know, of course, that in the normal processes of the House they cannot amend an instrument, but they can have reasonable hope, upstairs, of persuading the Minister to withdraw the instrument and make some adjustment to it. They will have an impossible choice. I suggest, therefore, in all seriousness, that this part of the Government's recommendations should be looked at again and that two things should be done.

Mr. Prior: Perhaps I can clear up one or two things as we go along, in case I miss certain points at the end of the debate. The hon. Gentleman is making


two points. First, he feels that there should be a proper mechanism for a vote to be taken in the merits committee. Secondly, supposing we have a mechanism which enables the vote to be taken, and there is thereby a vote, presumably the committee's report would come back to the Floor of the House.

Mr. Booth: Not for debate.

Mr. Prior: Not for debate, although I presume that through the usual channels one could be arranged, although it would not be automatic. Is the hon. Gentleman asking that there should be another vote without debate on the Floor of the House? Perhaps I can help him on his first point. Having heard his views so far, I believe that we should make proper arrangements for a vote to be taken in the merits committee. What I am not certain about is whether he is asking for a further vote to be taken on a report back to the House.

Mr. English: The Committee itself made the analogy on the 20 Members and other matters with the Second Reading Committee. This analogy seems to work in many ways, except that non-contentious Bills are referred to the Second Reading Committee. But if we take the analogy as far as we can in this context, we can bring the adverse report to the Floor of the House for a further vote. I would have thought that that would be desirable from both Government and Opposition points of view. The Government, for example, might have been defeated in a Select Committee, and might wish to restore the situation on the Floor of the House. On the other hand, the Opposition might wish to show that the whole of the Opposition had a certain view on a topic. I think that from either point of view—Government and Opposition—there would be merit in that. It would still save the time of the House, because at the most one would be taking about 10 minutes.

Mr. Booth: I am grateful to the Leader of the House for his intervention, because I see that I did not make my position clear. It is a complex issue. I believe that if the debate in the merits committee is to have importance, it need not be subject to a vote upstairs, provided

there is a mechanism for a vote on the Floor of the House—a vote which would take account of the report of the Committee. To put it at its lowest, a half-hour debate on the Floor of the House on the report of the merits committee might suffice for a final vote on the issue, or perhaps an adaptation of the 10 Minute Rule Bill procedure, with one speech for and one against. But for the merits committee to have relevance its report must be subject to decision on the Floor of the House. The alternative, as the right hon. Gentleman has reasonably pointed out, is a vote upstairs.
If there is a vote in the Committee the Government would have to decide whether it wanted power subsequently to reverse the decision on the Floor of the House. There is some merit in that, because the Government might wish to look again at an instrument following an adverse vote in Committee, with a vote to annulment. Whichever way it is done, before the whole procedure starts there has to be some understanding by those who table Prayers of the procedure which will follow reference to a committee. Unless that is understood an impossible situation is created.
May I suggest a way which might avoid certain difficulties which we now face with the very large batch of regulations issued under certain Bills? During the last week the Leader of the House may have had a look at the large number of regulations which came out this year in connection with the Merchant Shipping Act 1970. The same will be true of a number of other Bills. The Family Income Supplements Act produced a large number of regulations during its first year.
It may be of advantage to Parliament if the Standing Committee on a Bill was not disbanded once the Bill became law but was kept in existence to examine the first set of regulations produced under the Act. That procedure would have two major advantages—one being that the Members who looked at the first set of regulations would know when they debated in committee what powers they meant to put into the hands of Ministers to make regulations. It would also make Members serving on Standing Committees a little more apprehensive of giving Ministers powers to make regulations if they knew they were going to be responsible


for looking at the first batch of regulations. I put this to the House as a suggestion—not for the first time, because I put the same idea before the Committee on Procedure in 1970. I have not yet been convinced by any arguments that this suggestion would not serve a useful rôle.
I turn to the new job which will fall upon those dealing with delegated legislation as a result of the European Communities Act. I talk in no way about the merits or demerits of the Act. What that Act does in respect of delegated legislation is something which no other Act has ever done on such a scale. It enables Ministers to make delegated legislation of statutory instruments which will amend primary legislation substantially.
If we are to have before Parliament or its committee instruments which substantially amend primary legislation we will have the difficulty of there being no procedure for amending statutory instruments. For that reason there is very considerable thought to be given to the rôle of the committee on merits. We may or may not introduce an amending procedure on delegated legislation. We may have a little more flexibility from Ministers, with considerable advantage. Following a debate in Committee, they may show a willingness to take away an instrument, to amend it and relay it. To help the Minister do that we would have, in the nature of the time limits that operate, to be prepared to reduce the amount of time available for rescrutiny or reconsideration. At present, with the negative instrument procedure, there should be 40 days for praying; with the affirmative procedure we should have 28 days.
If a Minister, following a debate in Committee, withdraws an instrument on a specific point raised in Committee, or changes it to meet the point and lays it again, to ask him to go through a further 40 days of praying time, or a further month, would be unreasonable.
One of the things we could introduce into our procedures with advantage is some shortening of the period when an instrument was relaid, in the event of a Minister's meeting some of objections raised in Committee.
Statutory instruments and regulations increasingly concern Members of Parliament. They concern the courts of this

land. Above all, they control the rights of the citizens whom we represent to a far greater extent than ever before in our history. For this last reason Members of Parliament must do their utmost to regain proper democratic control over that area of our legislation.

8.45 p.m.

Mr. Ronald Bell: As the hon. Member for Barrow-in-Furness (Mr. Booth) says, this is a subject of great importance. He is not right, however, when he says that the European Communities Act is the first Act to give power to amend our substantive statute law by delegated legislation. Unfortunately, there are several other Acts, quite independent of the European Communities matter, which give this far-ranging, almost unlimited, power to Ministers to proceed by statutory instrument and to amend almost any Act of Parliament.
It has been the practice of Parliament for a long time now to pass Acts under which a great many things are done by orders or instruments. We have our debates in Standing Committee or Committee of the whole House. Members express anxiety. Sometimes, there is put in what is described as a parliamentary safeguard, and the instruments are made subject to prayer. Sometimes, we think that that is not enough and, at the end of a long struggle, the affirmative procedure instead of the negative is introduced, and the instrument is made subject to an affirmative motion to approve.
There must by now be hundreds, perhaps thousands, of powers to make statutory instruments. Those of us who have served on the Statutory Instruments Committee, for an endless period of years, it seems to me, have scrutinised statutory instrument after statutory instrument. I cannot think of how many thousands I have scrutinised, as it is put, and, at the end of it all, I ask myself what the value of the procedure has been. We have looked at the technical qualities of these instruments. We have found faults in the wording, we have found retrospection, we have found unexpected use of the powers in the statute—all the matters in our terms of reference—and I think one can fairly say that we and our predecessors have done a good job on the technical side. But as to the merits, what has Parliament done through all these


years since the statutory instrument habit started?
I cannot remember an occasion when Parliament has successfully annulled a statutory instrument, save one in 1950–51 when Lord Wigg, then Mr. Wigg, challenged an order on behalf of the then Opposition, he being a Government back bencher, by shouting, "No". He put in tellers for us but forgot to put in tellers for the then Government, so, in default of tellers for the Government, the Opposition, to their utter astonishment, without voting managed to annul a statutory instrument. Next day, we duly had a message from the King saying that he would be graciously pleased to annul the instrument, which, I am sorry to say, was relaid virtually the next day.
That is pretty well the sum total, and it means that Ministers make these orders in their thousands, and they are not subject to any effective parliamentary challenge. The safeguard is useless, and the sooner that is understood the better. It is a useless safeguard for three reasons. First, one cannot amend an order, and often enough the objection is to a small part of it. Second, prayers are taken late at night. They used to be taken very late at night. Now, they are nearly always taken as late business ending at 11.30 p.m. Hon. Members are kept here late so often that, when they have the opportunity to pair on a prayer and go away, they take it. It is no good pretending that prayers are treated as first-class business. They are not. When the right hon. Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman) was Leader of the House, he announced that, because of this defect, he would find time early in the day for more important prayers. But, like many other good intentions, it just never happened and prayers are late-night business.
The third reason is that, in effect, these are Government orders. The normal whipping procedure applies every time and we have created, as a rod for our own backs, the convention that the Government must not be defeated on the Floor of the House. This is often represented as an illustration of the sovereignty of Parliament. It is in effect the death knell of Parliament because if we cannot defeat the Government on the Floor of the House, far from having

control over them, we have abandoned all control.
As we have allowed to grow up the lunatic convention that the Government must not be defeated on the Floor of the House, or if they are defeated it is a major affair, with questions asked as to the Government's intentions, when polling day will be, and all this kind of nonsense, the only place in which we can improve legislation by amendment or by defeating a proposal is upstairs in Committee where, for some reason, this extraordinary convention has not become established with the same rigidity.
Recently the business of scrutiny of instruments has broken down completely. Only a small crop of prayers had to be tabled for the procedure to collapse because there was not enough time and there was so much late business. Last Session the system collasped entirely. The situation would have been equally hopeless this Session, and the only effect of the European Communities Act is to make it manifest for all time that the existing procedure is in a state of total collapse.
The House must therefore ask itself what it will do. Is it to allow what is, not the main law-making activity but an activity which seriously rivals in volume the direct legislation of the House, to be a purely bureaucratic operation without any parliamentary scrutiny worth the name?

Mr. John Mendelson: Is there not a sharp distinction between delegated legislation introduced by a Government elected by a majority of the electorate of this country and legislation which comes from an outside body? I have always thought that the underlying political justification of the procedure which we have adopted is that basically we have a certain amount of confidence that the constitutionally elected Government of this country will not, in their orders, go completely outside the general policy which they have put to the electorate. That will cease completely when the Common Market orders come into force.

Mr. Bell: The hon. Gentleman has had his commercial for a policy—

Mr. Mendelson: Oh!

Mr. Bell: The hon. Gentleman need not worry. I agree with him on this


matter and I congratulate him on using the opportunity of an intervention to put forward his view. However, I am not dealing with the interesting question of the merits of the European Communities, nor am I willing, though it is a very tempting proposition with Conservative Government, to agree with him that Governments in general never do anything contrary to what is expected of them—not even Governments of this country.
Our function is to look suspiciously on all Governments: to exercise very friendly scrutiny when they are made up of members of our own party and rather less friendly scrutiny when they are not.
The House must ask itself what it will do about this vast volume of delegated legislation. I have thought about this matter, as indeed have others, and have had the advantage of dealing with it for a very long time. Until we change our conventions I do not believe that any procedure on the Floor of the House will work. We must put it upstairs, but it is useless to put it upstairs before a committee which has no power to do anything except debate, take note or not take note. What is the good of not taking note? It must go beyond that. I gather from my right hon. Friend's intervention that his mind is moving slightly in this direction and he wants to give it some meaning.
I have no rigid concept of what the procedure should be. I do not mind what it is, provided that it supplies what we lack—a real check by Parliament on this mass of delegated legislation. When the members of the Scrutiny Committee disapprove of it they cannot give expression to their disapproval. We sometimes feel that something of which we approve in a broad way is being done in a wrong way, that we would like it recast, but there is nothing that we can do about it. This kind of view must be given proper expression.
I suggest, without wishing to be dogmatic, that the committee should have the power, by vote, to pass a resolution in some form which annuls an instrument unless its decision is reversed by a vote of the House. This throws the emphasis the right way. If the Select Committee, meeting in a rather less partisan atmosphere than that in the House, said, "This instrument ought to be taken back", that

should prevail unless the Government feel so strongly about it that they put down a motion to reverse that decision. That is as much as we can ask for.
There has to be an element of compromise, because the volume of delegated legislation is so great that any procedure giving full expression to any order concerning the control of Parliament would inevitably break down. There must be a selective element about it and the committee would have to exercise discipline in its approach. At any rate, let us try a procedure like this, see how it works, whether it breaks down under the weight of the volume of work and, indeed, is misused to fight party battles. If it is, we can look at it again. But let us try something like that procedure. We shall then feel that we have given some meaning to the words which we put into Bills for parliamentary scrutiny which at the moment are as useful as a vote of thanks to the staff.
I say no more about it. I have made my point and do not want to labour it with a long speech. I ask my right hon. Friend to believe that this is a matter on which there is strong feeling on both sides, that something should be done about it, and that this is the opportunity.

8.58 p.m.

Mr. Michael English: I wholly support some of the remarks by my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Central (Mr. Edward Short).
I recognise that this is the first procedure debate of the present Leader of the House, and everyone will wish him well in this respect. I hope that he will revert to the practice of his predecessor—now the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland—who used to lay similar motions well in time. These motions were laid in the minimum time to avoid being starred on the Order Paper. They were laid on Thursday, and for the very reasons that the Government have not accepted Friday Questions, even the Government tonight are saying that a Friday is not quite the same as other days. I suggest that had they been laid a fortnight or so ago most of these motions would have gone through almost on the nod.
This may seem a strange thing to say, but for example, I think the right hon.


Gentleman will realise that there is overwhelming support for the principle behind the motion dealing with delegated legislation. The hon. and learned Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. Ronald Bell), my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow-in-Furness (Mr. Booth) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Central agree with it. Nobody has spoken against the principle of the proposal, and I do not intend to myself, but there are small points that arise on such details as what one should vote on in Committee and minor things of that character.
What has happened in most cases in this Parliament so far is that a draft has been laid, any Member who wished has had the opportunity to table an amendment, and then the Leader of the House, as I know personally, has discussed particular amendments with individuals and perhaps accepted some and refused others. When he knows all the issues involved a Leader of the House is able to be more flexible. Had he had a whole crop of amendments before him he could, when he nodded his head and said that he was going to accept something that my right hon. Friend said, had said instead that he was going to accept the relevant amendment, No. 13, or whatever it was.
There is another reason for going back to that practice. Several times during his speech the Leader of the House said, "This is as the Procedure Committee recommended it". I hope that the right hon. Gentleman makes a distinction between something that the Procedure Committee does very well, namely, take evidence, and its recommendations. I compliment the Procedure Committee on the way that it takes evidence. It asks everybody whom it thinks is interested and suggests to them—and this is very important—the specific points which it believes ought to be considered in the evidence. The result is that there is some measure of guidance and nobody inadvertently omits to give evidence on a particular point. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Sir Robin Turton) primarily, and also the Clerk to the Committee, because they are the two people responsible for this excellent system.
I do not agree with the Committee—and I think we must recognise this—that it is representative of the House. The European Communities Act has been dragged into the debate. As an illustration of my point, I do not think that the right hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton, with all his knowledge of procedure, would claim to be totally representative of his party on the subject of the last report of the Committee. Equally, it so happens that every member of the Labour Party on the procedure committee belongs to its minority on the issue upon which it reported last time. It is not representative of the House in that way, nor is it intended to be.
The Committee is good at taking evidence. I do not think it is even true that all its members are necessarily particularly interested in the procedures of the House. As far as I can see only the Chairman and one other of its members are here today. None of the others is present, although some of them are academic writers on the subject. All the rest, including every Labour Member, are not here.
That shows that we are not to take every word of the Committee's recommendations as gospel truth. The then Chairman of the 1922 Committee gave evidence identical to that presented by the Parliamentary Affairs Group of the Labour Party. I understand that he is a back bencher elected by Conservative back benchers. We have no exact equivalent, because the Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party is a Front bencher elected by both Front and back benchers. But we have something that the Conservative Party does not have, a group of back benchers interested in the subject. When the Chairman of the 1922 Committee and my party's Parliamentary Affairs Group present identical evidence and the Committee turns it down, it is legitimate to wonder which of the various people concerned are right.
I acknowledge that some of the Parliamentary Affairs Group memoranda in the report are in my name, but they are in no way my sole work. Each is individually drafted and circulated among the 30-odd members, those already interested in the subject. All the amendments are then discussed and circulated to our Front Bench for information. Therefore, by the


time they reach the committee they have been considered by a fair number of people. Much of what my right hon. Friend said tonight was already said in our memoranda of evidence to the committee, and, oddly enough, also said in many cases by the 1922 Committee.
The origin of the motion on the right of Members to attend Select Committees is not quite as the Leader of the House, through no fault of his own, thought it was. The practice of Members attending Select Committees goes back about 400 years. Like my right hon. Friend, I do not think that it can be reversed overnight. It used to be much more extensive. Members used to be able to attend Select Committees and speak but not vote. The odd thing is that the day we are abolishing attendance, in Motion No. 9, we are, in Motion No. 8 putting back something that was abolished before 1857, because the right of Members to attend and to speak at the Standing Committee is one of the recommendations of the Joint Committee on Delegated Legislation. Therefore, there is a certain inconsistency.
There used to be attached to committee orders of reference the statement
and all Members shall have voices.",
a rather nice phrase. That ceased to happen in the 1830s for most committees and about 10 years later for the Committee of Privileges. But, if the clerks follow precedent, as they so often do, the exact wording of that statement will presumably be the way in which they will word the order of reference to the Standing Committee on Delegated Legislation, because the Joint Committee Report says that all Members should be able to attend and speak. Just as something is being put back in one place which disappeared in the 1830s and the 1840s, it is being abolished for every other committee of the House of Commons.
The Select Committee on Procedure, which as I say is an excellent committee for collecting evidence, say this at page vi:
Your Committee sought information from the select committees of the House as to the extent to which Members had exercised their rights of attendance at meetings of select committees; the comments of select committees were also invited on the methods proposed by the Second Clerk Assistant for altering the practice, should this be desired. Of the fourteen select committees consulted, the majority were content with the present practice.

That is the evidence which the Select Committee on Procedure got. I am not worried at present about the committee's recommendations. The committee then said that the Expenditure Committee, the Select Committee on Nationalised Industries and the Select Committee on Science and Technology—only three out of 14—had some views on, for example, classified information. I have consulted the Chairman of the Expenditure Committee and I understand that was solely in relation to one sub-committee, the Defence subcommittee.
Nobody has suggested that there should not be a way of dealing with classified information. The memorandum submitted by the Parliamentary Affairs Group of the Parliamentary Labour Party suggested that the committee should have power to exclude a Member when a witness is giving evidence that is not likely to be published. Fair enough, but that is not a blanket power to exclude on all occasions.
However, that is exactly what happened at the Select Committee on the Civil List. I and several members of both major parties wished to attend the Civil List Committee when it was hearing evidence. The Chancellor of the Exchequer who was the Committee's chairman produced—I think he was ill-advised—a statement to the effect that we had no right to attend on any occasion. We pointed out that there might be some witnesses whose evidence he wished to take in private. His attitude was that he wanted all the witnesses to give evidence in private. So the Members gently withdrew. However, we came back for the deliberations of the committee. We were then told, "Not only did we not want you to hear the evidence. We do not want you to hear us discuss it. You have no right to hear us discuss it". So it was to be total and general exclusion.
Then then Leader of the House, who was also a member of the Civil List Committee, said to the chairman of the committee and to those present that he was entirely prepared to put any motion before the House if the committee wished it, but the committee did not wish it. That was the essential point about it. We refused to withdraw from the committee because the committee did not want to return to the House. They wanted us to withdraw but they did not want to


decide it, because that would have meant coming back to the Floor of the House for approval. Yet that is how the matter ought to be done. It ought to be a matter for decision by the House of Commons whether and to what extent a committee should have the power to exclude Members. We may say it in a general way about classified information or of a particular committee at the time it is set up if it is an ad hoc committee. However, it should be the function of the House of Commons, not the blanket motion which is on the Order Paper today.
The Civil List Committee did not want Members there, but it did not want anybody to know that it did not want Members there either. That was the Civil List Committee's peculiar difficulty. In the end the then Leader of the House out of his general kindness and quick wittedness solved the difficulty by saying, "If I refer the matter to the Select Committee on Procedure, will you be happy?" We said that we would be happy, because there is a rule of procedure which says that Members cannot discuss what happens in committee. The only way we can discuss what happens in a Select Committee, oddly enough, is not on the Floor of the House except when the matter is first raised in another Select Committee and put in evidence to that committee. That committee then reports on it and then we are able to discuss it here. This subject ought to have been on the Order Paper to enable us to discuss what happened in the Civil List Committee. I am sorry that the procedure Committee went to the extent of widening somewhat the suggestion put to it in evidence.
I will not go through all the other motions. My right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Central has adequately and fairly defended the rights of back benchers on Consolidated Fund Bills. All the evidence submitted by back benchers expressed views different from the view put forward in this motion. I agree that this is exactly the same as the limitation suggested by the procedure Committee but it is substantially opposed to the present pattern. I am not at all convinced that back benchers want five hours chopped off the Consolidated Fund Bill debates.

I have never heard this mentioned to me by any back bencher and I stress "back bencher". I have heard it said by the Chief Whip but never by any back bencher, for the simple reason that Members are able to assess approximately when their subject will come up.
I said in the evidence I gave to the Procedure Committee that examples of this could be given. In the previous Parliament my right hon. Friends' successor as Chief Whip called me into his office once and said, "Michael I am going to try an experiment. You take a piece of paper and I will take a piece of paper and let us see how long, in the light of the number of people in the Chamber now and the subjects to be discussed, this Consolidated Fund Bill debate will last". We both worked it out and we arrived at figures which were different by half an hour. The debate ended exactly on the quarter hour between those two estimates. I suggest that this can easily be done, is done and used to be done before the balloting system by Members who put themselves down for a Second Reading debate.
The Chairman of the 1922 Committee, and I imagine his executive committee, because I understood he consulted it, and the Parliamentary Affairs Group of my Party, together representing all back benchers interested in this subject, recommended to the Procedure Committee that we scrap the ballot. The ballot has never had any legal existence in so far as no one wished to challenge Mr. Speaker—and I do not mean you, Mr. Speaker, but a predecessor of yours. All of a sudden one day the then Mr. Speaker rose and said that in future, instead of everyone putting their names down for the Consolidated Fund Bill debate, so that it was first come first served, he would have a ballot. There was no consultation with anyone. If this motion is passed, and I hope that it will not be, this will be the first legalisation of the ballot to take place in the form of a resolution in this House.
The ballot has caused an awful lot of trouble. To begin with it increases the influence of the whips. When there is a ballot, because there are greater chances of coming up at any given place the greater the number of people who put their names in, so there is a situation where the whips go round and say, "Have


you forgotten to put your name in the ballot? Remember to put your name in. Have you got a list of subjects you might think about?" They do this on both sides, as we all know.
The advantage of this as put to us by the Procedure Committee, and I almost put "advantage" in inverted commas, is that a ballot is fair because it does not mean that the first man to get there gets the subject, to which the former Chairman of the 1922 Committee and I replied that we did not particularly see why the keener and more active Members of the House should necessarily be considered as being disadvantageous if they came at the top of the list.
We pointed out that this procedure did not exist anywhere else in the House, that there were opportunities for obtaining things by ballot, that there were other opportunities selected by Mr. Speaker, and we suggested that a variety of possible procedures was a good thing in itself and that they should not all be replaced by ballots, by a selection of Mr. Speaker or in any other single way. This procedure is unique in that respect.
The third result of having a ballot is that although an hon. Member may be the first to put in his name, he may come eighteenth in the ballot and not bother to turn up for that subject, although the Minister may be waiting. One hopes that a back bencher would always have the courtesy to tell the Minister. That does not always follow, because he may think that the debate will be cut off before his subject is reached and then by some accident it may be reached. With a first-come, first-served system, people know before they put their names down exactly where they are in the list and whether their arrangements permit them to turn up.
The fourth difficulty is that the notice both for other hon. Members and for Ministers of the subject to be debated that night is shortened. The procedure Committee has mentioned that and made recommendations upon it.
All the groups representing back benchers made a suggestion to go back to the old practice. I did not hear much criticism at that time, except a slight scramble to get to the door. If we went back it would be interesting to see

whether the criticisms which have been made since disappear.
I will not go over the other subjects, but I am glad that my right hon. Friend spoke as he did upon them. I am a little sorry that it is from this side of the House that the objection to written statements comes. I think I know the reason for that. If one had a little more time for discussion one might be able to persuade one's hon. and right hon. Friends that my hon. Friend's suggestion of written statements had merits and had not the disadvantage that some see in it. The essential thing is that we should always have time for discussion before the motions come to the Floor of the House.
When I say that I am opposed to them for that reason, I hope that the Leader of the House will realise, as I said at the beginning of my speech, that we have very much support for him and very much good will towards his resolutions except on points of detail. If we will not press them tonight but simply leave them on the Order Paper, amendments of the type suggested could be put down. The right hon. Gentleman could consider them at his leisure and come back to the House with a revised motion mopping up those that he finds acceptable.

9.23 p.m.

Mr. Michael Hamilton: I was very interested to hear what the hon. Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English) had to say about being excluded from the Select Committee considering the Civil List. I am very pleased that tonight the House has an opportunity of considering this question and the rights of Members to attend such meetings. It enables me to explain in five minutes a situation in which I myself have been affected but which could equally affect any other Member of this House. It is a situation which can hardly be allowed to lie where it is—a situation in which the House may detect some small element of injustice.
What happened is this: I chanced one day to draw from the Vote Office a report of the Select Committee on the Parliamentary Commissioner. In that report I found that the Select Committee had devoted a very full sitting to a matter which lies wholly, solely and exclusively within the Salisbury division, which I represent. My initial reaction was one


of delight—delight that colleagues, two Conservative, two Labour, and one Liberal, had appreciated the fact that this was a particularly unusual case, and that they had been good enough to devote time to it. I also saw that the committee had called in and examined the Permanent Secretary and an Assistant Secretary of the Department concerned with the matter. I was very interested to see that those high-ranking civil servants had to say about matters in Wiltshire.
That same day I wrote to the chairman of the committee, the right hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. Michael Stewart), and made clear to him that I hold views different from those expressed by those witnesses. I pointed out that it was quite fortuitous—though I welcomed the fact—that I had stumbled on this report, and I asked the right hon. Gentleman if I might be summoned as a witness and cross-examined equally. Needless to say, I wrote to the right hon. Gentleman last Friday telling him that I would be raising this matter tonight. The right hon. Gentleman replied to my first letter saying that the committee did not feel that it could ask me to meet it. Later I again wrote to him and asked, if I were to submit a paper to the committee, whether the committee would consider it and, secondly, whether it would consider publishing that paper in its report. I am sorry to say that I have not received an answer to those two questions, and that is precisely where the situation lies at this moment.

Mr. English: The hon. Gentleman is a member of the Procedure Committee and I apologise for not before mentioning his presence. Do I take it that he is now saying that this report needs to consider some of the small edges of this matter?

Mr. Hamilton: I think that the suggested change to the Standing Orders goes a small way towards helping me in principle, as I think the hon. Member will see as I come to the point towards the end of what I have to say.
I would not have chosen to raise this issue on the Floor of the House, but I see no alternative. I think it is justified because I feel that this situation could equally occur with any other hon. Member. With great deference, I suggest that

it would accord with the traditions of the House if the committee, at its convenience, were to hear and to cross-examine the Member who raised the matter in the first instance and whose constituents are vitally affected. This report has been published by the Stationery Office. At the public expense a forum has been provided for the Permanent Secretary's views, spread over 18 columns of print, and the committee has not provided a similar forum for those whom I represent. Neither before nor afterwards was I notified that this matter was to be considered. One side has been heard, and one submission only stands on the record.
I have—and I think all of us here have—great personal respect for the right hon. Member for Fulham. He is a most courteous man. We are concerned tonight not with personalities but with procedure.
If I read his thinking and that of his committee correctly, I believe it is concerned, first, to protect the Parliamentary Commissioner. I sense that the committee is anxious that the Commissioner's finding should not subsequently be laid on the table and examined, but if the committee's case rests on this premise those civil servants should not have been summoned and cross-examined as they were. Since this has now happened, it cannot be right that the privilege accorded to them should be denied to a Member.
If the concern of the committee is to protect the Parliamentary Commissioner, I hardly think that this is the best way to set about it. In principle, if people have confidence in the handling of this or any matter, that confidence is hardly strengthened by excluding dissentient views. As for the Parliamentary Commissioner, I am certain that no man would seek to be defended less than he. He is fallible, just like the rest of us, and it would be a sad day if ever he came to be regarded as some Delphic oracle. However, his findings have been published and I am sure that he would wish them to be submitted to the fullest daylight and scrutiny. If they cannot be submitted to scrutiny they are not worth the paper on which they are written.
I stress that I would like to have been present at that meeting of the Select Committee. There surely is something profoundly wrong when Select Committees consider individual constituency problems


without notifying the Member concerned. Secondly, there must be something equally wrong—I am delighted that the Leader of the House is present to hear me say this—if a group of Members, appointed by the House to act on its behalf, invites civil servants to its counsels while refusing similar facilities to a Member of this House.
I am pleased to have been able to raise this matter and to put it on record. It is not a minor personal protest; it is a matter of principle, which affects the rights of hon. Members and their ability to represent their constituents.
I ask my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House to suggest how best this matter can be remedied. Today it is Salisbury, but tomorrow it may equally be Lowestoft. This could happen to any one of us. It is not enough to say that Select Committees are masters in their own houses. Something has gone wrong, and only my right hon. Friend can put it right. I hope that he will consult the committee in question, and I greatly look forward to his reply tonight.

9.34 p.m.

Mr. Michael Cocks: I wish to deal briefly with the question of the Consolidated Fund Bill because I am against any change in the existing practice. I put forward this view with due modesty because I have been a Member of this House for only 2½ years, but in my limited experience I have come to the conclusion that the proposed changes would not be in the interests of back bench Members.
The application of some sort of time limit of 45 minutes on debates would put an extremely onerous burden on you, Mr. Speaker, in trying to decide where discretion should be allowed. It is extremely difficult to judge, with the best will in the world, the substance of a debate from the title of the subject matter to be discussed.
If I may give an example, when we discussed the last Consolidated Fund Bill but one I put down as a subject for debate holiday road traffic congestion in South Bristol. On the face of it, it was a narrow constituency point. In fact, the debate was used by the Minister for a most important statement on the motorway bridge carrying the M5 across the River Avon. It was a topic of great

interest not only to me but to other hon. Members representing Bristol and Somerset constituencies. A full debate took place, where it would have been very difficult to confine it to 45 minutes or so and do justice to those who wished to take part.
What is more, if an hon. Member's name appears very low in the list all is not lost. Shortly after I came to this House my name was drawn very low in the list. I spent the night trying to get a little rest in a series of uncomfortable positions, only to find that my topic was not reached. However, the Minister who was due to reply was gracious enough to tell me afterwards that if I cared to write to him setting out the points that I intended to make in the debate he would be pleased to consider them. He went on to suggest that he would be prepared to allow me to discuss the matter with him and his civil servants. He granted me an interview and took my points. At a later date he was kind enough to come to my constituency in order to examine the premises concerned with the subject that I had raised with him. As a result of not being drawn, and thanks to the Minister's generosity, I did a great deal better than if my name had appeared higher in the list and I had put my points to the Minister in the course of the debate.
In this connection, I am not entirely against a ballot. A list on a first-come-first-served basis takes my mind back to one of the earliest procedure debates that I attended on the subject of Ten Minute Rule Bills. I recall that the House was asked to sort out a problem which had arisen in the previous Session when one hon. Member had apparently arrived first on the scene and had pre-empted all the opportunities for Ten Minute Rule Bills throughout the year. This undesirable trait has now been eliminated by the present procedure. But it seems to me that just as can happen with planted Questions, so a Government in difficulty can arrange for a number of back benchers to pre-empt the early places in the Consolidated Fund Bill Second Reading debate, knowing that by this means they can remove themselves from critical scrutiny during the passage of the Bill.
I ask the Leader of the House to think again about these proposals, especially


from the point of view of back benchers. To a large extent a great deal of what back benchers do in this House is dictated by the respective Front Benches and party Whips. We do not have a great deal of freedom, and some of us put in a great deal of time here. I should not like to see any change which reduced the freedom that we enjoy in the Second Reading debate on the Consolidated Fund Bill, where hon. Members who are prepared to attend and to wait for an opportunity to subject Ministers to the questioning and scrutiny may do so.
I hope that the Leader of the House will have second thoughts about the Consolidated Fund Bill, and not seriously change the established position. In saying that, I am mindful of the point made by the Opposition Chief Whip in his evidence, that the present practice is inconvenient to the staff. I appreciate that fully, but I often feel that that is the sort of excuse which is used in circumstances where a certain course of action may be very convenient to other people. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to think again.

9.40 p.m.

Sir Robin Turton: I will keep to the same order and deal first with the Report of the Committee on Questions. I have served on four committees dealing with Parliamentary Questions. But Question Time has become progressively worse. I do not know whether there is any connection, but when I was first here we used to get through from 60 to 100 Questions an hour. We now get through between 30 and 40. That means that today 500 hon. Members are putting down 15,000 Questions, fewer than 5,000 of which are being answered in a Session. If that is compared with what has happened over the years, back bench Members have lost the opportunity of asking something like 3,000 Questions a Session. I regard Question Time as the back benchers' great opportunity, and the loss of opportunity is unfortunate.
There are three ways of tackling the problem—first, by extending Question Time; secondly, by restricting the more inquisitive back benchers; and, thirdly, by devising new methods of getting more Questions answered in the limited time. Successive committees have recommended the extension of Question Time by 10

minutes to a quarter-of-an-hour and making Questions begin punctually at half past two. Ministers regarded that recommendation as being a terrible invasion of the lunch hour, and it met with no support. I should have thought that a punctual start at half-past two would not embarrass those who indulge in the heaviest of lunches.
The Select Committee on Parliamentary Questions, of which I was a member, recommended two extensions, Question Time on a Friday and an extra quarter of an hour for the Prime Minister's Questions on Tuesday. These recommendations have been completely scorned by the Front Bench and rejected. Even the Deputy Leader of the Opposition thought that it would be highly inconvenient taking Questions on a Friday because he did not grace the House with his presence on Friday. It seemed to be a good reason for taking Questions on a Friday because it is the back benchers' opportunity and not an opportunity for Deputy Leaders of the Opposition.
One of the worst declines in the habits of the House has been at Question Time. It used to be the privilege of back benchers, but it is now continually being usurped by Shadow Ministers who are trying to show off their prowess not only individually but in great groups. That is an unfortunate development.
We have failed in trying to get any extension of Question Time so we must look next—

Mr. James Tinn: Does the right hon. Gentleman recognise, as a provincial hon. Member, that the Deputy Leader of the Opposition was probably speaking on behalf of provincial hon. Members who usually have constituency engagements on a Friday?

Sir Robin Turton: I am as provincial an hon. Member as the hon. Member for Cleveland (Mr. Tinn). But if I had an important constituency matter in my constituency I might well sacrifice it so that I could put a Question on a Friday. Bearing in mind that it was recommended that only two Ministries should be taken each Friday, that it should be in addition to any rationing arrangement and that Ministers could put up their Parliamentary Secretaries to give the answers, it would enable more hon. Members to get


the opportunity to put Questions. But any recommendation for an extension of Question Time is savagely treated by all Front Benchers.

Mr. Lipton: rose—

Sir Robin Turton: I know that the hon. Gentleman wants to make a contribution. However, time is getting on and I must deal with my next point.
Professor Chester looked at the problem of rationing and concluded that with rationing one would probably have to allocate each Member 15 Questions a Session. The Committee proposes that each Member should have 130 Questions a Session and the Government have accepted this recommendation. I will be quite frank about it. I have sat on two procedure Committees which have looked into this matter, and I have always been opposed to rationing, for two reasons. First, constituency problems are not spread out evenly over the year. One may suddenly find a time where for one's constituency one wants to put down a large number of Questions in a short time. Rationing would work against that. Secondly, as those old enough to remember sweet rationing will agree, rationing always stimulates the appetite. If one is told that one can put down eight Questions in ten days, one is tempted to say, "I must be failing in my duty if I do not get my eight Questions down".
I warn my right hon. Friend, therefore, that if he accepts this recommendation he will not necessarily get fewer Questions, but more. In fact, he will see from the statistics that 466 Members ask fewer than 100 Questions each. They ask altogether 9,260 Questions in the Session. Thus, as we reach rather fewer than 5,000, the recommendation would not be a solution even if it did not cause more Questions than ever to be put on the Order Paper.
I have come to the conclusion that we have to be more radical in our approach to Question Time reform. I am certain that the failure of this House—and I say it as one who is a Conservative by political belief—is that it is far too conservative when dealing with its procedure. We have built up a number of fictitious traditions, such as that every Member has a right to a supplementary Question. The result is that if a number

of hon. Members ask identical Questions which are answered together, you, Mr. Speaker, have to call them successively one by one to get their treasured right to a supplementary, thereby destroying the whole value of Question Time. I hope that the House will agree with the recommendation in paragraph 25 of the Select Committee Report and that you, Mr. Speaker, will take note.
With all deference to you, Mr. Speaker, I believe that the success of Question Time depends a great deal on the exercise of your discretion, and I know how conscious you are of the responsibility that lies in you. If I venture an opinion, it is that if 45 Questions were answered every day it would be a great gain to the majority of back benchers, but to do that it means a certain exercise of discretion and perhaps the Nelson touch in dealing sometimes with interventions by members of the Front Bench and by Privy Councillors. I believe that this would help Question Time a great deal.
Again, if we are to have—I hope that we shall, because it is a good recommendation—written Questions on named days, I suggest that if an hon. Member puts down for oral answer the kind of Question which should be answered in written form on a named day, he will not necessarily be allowed a supplementary. We know that hon. Members often ask Questions for oral Answers which can clearly be answered only with a table of figures. Hon. Members think they can have a supplementary question on that although they cannot have seen the table of figures to be circulated with the OFFICIAL REPORT.
Originally Questions were printed and then the Member read out the Question. To save time and to enliven the proceedings, the House of Commons in the early part of the twentieth century, changed the procedure. So that Questions were not read out. An experiment should be tried, as recommended by the Warden of Nuffield College, that answers as well as Questions should be printed on the Order Paper. It would mean that Ministers had to prepare their answers some 12 hours earlier. I know from my own ministerial experience that that is what normally happens. It is only on rare occasions that Ministers have to make alterations to their answers during


the last 12 hours. That change of procedure would enliven Question Time.
Some of my colleagues serving on the Committee thought that procedure would take the surprise out of waiting for the ministerial answer. Hon. Members will not attach much importance to that. I have always found ministerial answers to be predictable. The fun begins when a Minister answers supplementary questions.
I am sorry that that experiment is not being tried now. I feel sure when we have had the ration and have seen how the number of Questions mounts up from 15,000 to 20,000, we shall again come back to another Select Committee which eventually, I think, will adopt Professor Chester's suggestion.
Turning to the criticisms made of the two reports of the Procedure Committee, and dealing first with that concerning the Consolidated Fund Bill, the hon. Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English) is very worried because he and my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke) both said they did not like the ballot and we had paid no attention to them. The position of the hon. Member for Nottingham, West is not the same as that of my right hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Ely. The hon. Member for Nottingham, West is the chairman of the Parliamentary Affairs Group of the Labour Party. Whereas my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for the Isle of Ely was the chairman of the 1922 Committee. His opposite number, the right hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton), said he wanted Mr. Speaker to select the subject. He was not in favour of the ballot. The evidence we had, except that from the hon. Member for Nottingham, West and my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for the Isle of Ely, was in favour of the ballot and against the first-come, first-served principle. The hon. Member for Bristol, South (Mr. Michael Cocks) gave as his reason the fact that the ballot would discourage the "packing" abuse one saw.

Mr. English: If the right hon. Gentleman will read my speech he will see that I made the point that the chairman of the 1922 Committee is neither the equivalent of the chairman of the Parliamentary Affairs group, myself, nor the equivalent of the right hon. Member

for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton), the point being that what the hon. and gallant Member for the Isle of Ely and I have in common is that we are the only two back benchers, whereas the chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party is a Front Bencher elected by the whole party.

Sir Robin Turton: The hon. and gallant Member for the Isle of Ely gave his own opinion.
Generally most Members are in favour of the ballot. That is the general view of the Committee on Procedure.
The right hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Central (Mr. Edward Short) criticised our suggestion for the cut-off at five o'clock. As I understand it, he is in favour of Mr. Speaker allotting time for debate, but he is against the cut-off. The reason why we must have a cut-off is that Mr. Speaker cannot apportion the time unless he knows what time there is to apportion. We, therefore, recommended for the two debates, the winter and summer debates, the longest time that we had had previously. In other words, one would go until one o'clock at night, then adjourn, and go over to a Friday to make up the full time. We had an assurance from the then Leader of the House that that could happen on one of the two occasions, but there might at times be difficulty on the other. Therefore, we put in the alternative, which has now been embodied in the motion, that there would be the five o'clock cut-off.
The House must recognise that the habit of going through the night does not gain the admiration of the country, and it is inconvenient to the staff. I believe that this is a lesson which the House must learn. So long as I have any appointment on the Select Committee on Procedure, I shall try to reduce the amount of time which the House spends late at night, because I believe that it makes the House a laughing stock in the country and I cannot think that it is good for business or for those who work for us.
That is why we made our recommendation. Many Fridays are used by the Government for their business, and that business finishes early. This happens particularly often on Fridays in the summer. I believe that an adjustment could be made, as we suggested, by making a gap in Private Members' Fridays, the Government giving one Friday to the


Consolidated Fund, and then the Private Members' Friday being taken one week later. I am sure that it could be done.
I am sorry that we are not to have written ministerial statements. I hope that the Opposition will reconsider this matter. The suggestion originated from one of their own Members, the hon. Member for Islington, South-West (Mr. George Cunningham), and I thought it very wise, for this reason. Recently, the number of Questions for Written Answer has increased to 20,000 a Session, a huge increase. It has gone up by 100 per cent. Small decisions by Ministers are increasing in number, and it is necessary for the House to be told about a decision before a Minister makes an announcement in the Press.
Whether an oral ministerial statement is made depends on the decision of the Leader of the House, who must have regard for opportunities for business and debate. There cannot be too many ministerial statements. At present, we find that policy decisions are being tucked away in a large number of Written Answers, which makes it hard for a Member to identify them.
As I say, I hope that the Opposition will think again about this. I understand that the Government would be perfectly ready to make the innovation. Written ministerial statements would be advertised in the Opposition Lobby, and would be available in the Vote Office at 3.30 p.m. I am sure that, if it were adopted, this procedure would be a great improvement for the House.
I am surprised that we are not to have "injury time" on Private Member's motion days. We thought this a reasonable recommendation. It was put forward by a back bencher who pointed out that there had been an occasion, on 13th December 1971, when a Private Member's motion had been delayed for 1½ hours by three ministerial statements, one Private Notice Question, and two applications under Standing Order No. 9.
We thought it reasonable that that amount of "injury" time should be given after seven o'clock. I think that it was the right hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Central—if it was not, I apologise—who said that—

It being Ten o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Ordered,
That the Motions relating to Procedure, Parliamentary Questions, delegated legislation, Attendance of Members at Meetings of Select Committees and Business of the House (Consolidated Fund Bills) and the Housing (Amendment) Bill may be proceeded with at this day's Sitting though opposed, until any hour.—[Mr. Prior.]

Question again proposed.

10.1 p.m.

Sir Robin Turton: The right hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Central said that that would be in breach of the ten o'clock rule. But it would not. It would mean that if the Government, through ministerial statements, wished to take the time of Private Members' motions, they would have to be robbed of that time between seven o'clock and ten o'clock.
The proposition is very reasonable. It is not fair continually to cut down the time devoted to Private Members' motions. It does not happen on Standing Order No. 9 debates. Members get "injury" time in those instances; they have the three hours. In the 1967–68 or the 1968–69 Session, on two occasions out of four, time for Private Members' motions was cut by over an hour.
I wish to say a word or two on the question of the right of Members to attend Select Committees. This is not an easy matter. There has been much discussion about the Civil List. What critics of our recommendation have forgotten is that unless some rule is laid down the only remedy for a committee is to adjourn. In certain instances witnesses will not give evidence, and they make it clear that they will not give evidence, unless it is limited to the members of the committee. If a Member demands that he should attend the committee, the only remedy for the committee is to adjourn, and to keep on adjourning.
We made it absolutely clear that a Member should have the right to attend meetings of all Select Committees—and that applies particularly to what my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Mr. Michael Hamilton) said—but that a committee should have the right by resolution to exclude other Members for a special reason, and that is embodies in the motion which has been accepted by the


Government. I do not see how hon. Members can object to that.

Mr. English: There are two points. First, the matter is not quite as the right hon. Gentleman has put it. Whereas formerly Members had the right to attend the deliberations of Select Committees, under the proposal of the Select Committee on Procedure as accepted by the Government, we would not have that right, even if it were the Services Committee discussing our own parliamentary building, which surely is not a subject classified as secret as there are exhibitions about it all over the place.
Secondly, nobody objects to there being a rule that, although Members should have the right to attend during the evidence of witnesses, we should give the committee a power, not to exclude them from hearing classified information or information which the committee is not likely to publish, but a blanket power. It was exactly that power which the Civil List Committee thought it had, found it had not but did not wish to come to the House to obtain it because it wanted to meet in secret.

Sir Robin Turton: The intention of our recommendation was that all Members should be able to attend but that the committee should have the power to exclude them. If our recommendation is not drafted sufficiently clearly for the Government, it can be amended for that purpose.
The evidence that we received from both the then Opposition Chief Whip and the Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party was that it was extremely embarrassing for Members to have the right to attend during deliberations. It is far from certain, as was suggested by the hon. Member for Nottingham, West, that that was the old practice. I think the old practice was that Members could not attend Select Committees to which they were not appointed during deliberations, but they could always attend when evidence was given.
Our recommendation is an attempt to bring the law back to what it was accepted to be in recent years. I very much hope that that is not delayed, because it can be embarrassing if one or two hon. Members try to obstruct the

work of a Select Committee by attending when their attendance is inconvenient.

10.6 p.m.

Mr. Marcus Lipton: I think that sufficient has been said in the debate to make the Leader of the House realise that the House as a whole has not yet had enough time to consider all the implications of the proposals that he is asking us to accept. That point was made with considerable force by my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Central (Mr. Edward Short). It would surely be undesirable that with such a small number of Members in attendance these important changes in our practice and procedure should be made.
I give notice that I do not propose to put the amendments standing in my name when the time comes for them to be called. That may help to shorten the proceedings so that we do not have another debate after the general motions moved by the Leader of the House have been considered. For the convenience of the House, and in the spirit of good will which should prevail at this time of the year, I do not propose to press my amendments.
The right hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Sir Robin Turton) referred to injury time affecting Private Members' motions. That leads me to remind the Leader of the House that we never have a full hour for Questions. Four or five minutes are taken up by Prayers, there may be one or two private Bills to which objection is taken, or one or two petitions. Therefore, the ordinary back bench Member never has a full hour of Questions in which to probe, display his talents, or annoy the Government. The Leader of the House might be disposed to consider that the hour for Questions should commence as soon as Mr. Speaker calls upon the first hon. Member to put his Question. In that way Question Time may run to 3.35 or 3.36 p.m., but at least we would have the full hour for Questions to which we are entitled.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Central does not agree that it would serve a useful purpose to have one hour for Questions on Friday mornings, and I am sorry that the Leader of the House has not accepted that proposal. No one is under any obligation


to attend the House at any time. Ministers—even Shadow Ministers—may find it necessary to be absent from the House on a day other than Friday. No one will criticise them for that. I think that if this concession were made it would be found that it was not used only by London Members. There are many provincial Members who would like to avail themselves of this hour on a Friday morning. They could do so and still get home or back to their constituencies in time for an evening meeting.
Reference has been made to the extent to which the Order Paper is overloaded with Questions. The Father of the House is able to say that this is done to an extent that has never been equalled in the past. The committee has put forward a complicated proposal to allow every Member eight Questions every 10 days. I think that it will be necessary for the Table Office to have a computer to work that out.
If the intention is to ration Questions it would be simpler to allow each Member one oral Question a day. That would be the effect of the Amendment which I do not now intend to move. As Dr. Johnson said on one occasion, "Impending execution is a powerful incentive to the concentration of thought." If a Member were allowed only one oral Question a day he would have to decide for himself which were the important issues and which were not and the Order Paper would not be cluttered up to the extent it is now by Questions which we know in advance will never be answered orally. The kind of rationing that I have suggested would reduce the number of Question on today's Order Paper by about 20. The idea is certainly work considering, because it would enable perhaps the second or even the third Minister on the Order Paper to be reached much more frequently than happens now. I suggest that this business of eight Questions every

10 days is unnecessarily complicated, and I am being even more generous than the Leader of the House when I suggest one oral Question per day. That would be the simplest and easiest way of dealing with the problem.
Today's Order Paper contains 37 Questions to the Secretary of State for Wales. That means that the words
To ask the Secretary of State for Wales
are repeated 37 times. Would it not he much simpler to have a heading, "To ask the Secretary of State for Wales" followed by a number Mr. So-and-So, and his constituency and Question, and so on? That would save an awful lot of printing.
I have calculated that on today's Order Paper up to 600 words would have been saved, and when Questions are addressed the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs the saving would be even greater. The tendency of the present Administration is to have Ministers with long titles, and I am sorry for the printer who has to set up long titles over and over again. It would be easy to have a much more streamlined Order Paper without prejudice to the rights of individual Members.
I hope that the Leader of the House will consider that suggestion because day after day we get a lot of printed material thrown at us and anything that we can do to reduce the number of printed words that we have to read is worth considering. The same applies to written Questions. By adopting this procedure we would also save paper and that too, is worth considering.
I do not wish to take up any more of the time of the House. I shall consider my contribution to the debate to have been worth while if the Leader of the House accepts my proposal to cut down the amount of printed material on the Order Paper.

10.15 p.m.

Mr. Tam Dalyell: I am all for the verbal surgery proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Brixton (Mr. Lipton). To use the phrase of the right hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Sir Robin Turton), we are in injury time, so I shall confine myself to certain specific issues.
The first speech to which I wish to refer is that of the hon. Member for Salisbury (Mr. Michael Hamilton). I happen to know something about the case he raised, which is prima facie an important House of Commons matter. The attitude of mind among Ministers that is revealed is one that spreads over into other matters. I hope that the Leader of the House will raise with his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland the question of the whole style and behaviour of the Scottish Office over certain key appointments in our constituencies.
Should not Members of Parliament be given the courtesy of at least being informed before appointments are made, such as appointments to the chairmanship of new towns in their constituencies? When it is put to them that certain things will happen in their constituencies, they can be trusted not to inform the Press beforehand or leak an announcement. But we are often approached by members of the Press who bring us the news, and it is very embarrassing to have to say, on inquiry, "This is the first I have heard about it." Therefore, the issue raised by the hon. Gentleman is important, and a general issue. I hope that the Leader of the House will consider it his business to go into it.
I echo in general the thoughts of my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Central (Mr. Edward Short). I wish specifically to raise the matter of Private Notice Questions. I do not think that this is a debate in which back bench Members or Front Bench Members should tell you how to conduct yourself in the Chair, Mr. Speaker. What I have to say is not meant in that spirit. But may we ask on what criteria a number of Private Notice Questions are allowed? I think specifically of all the relatively minor accidents. Doubtless, when two or three people are killed in a bridge disaster or railway accident it is

very miserable, but it is immediately obvious what the House of Commons can do about it.
There seems to be some force that motivates many hon. Members when an accident happens in their constituency to feel that they must, even against their own better judgment, raise the matter in the House, although they know perfectly well that the House and the Government can do nothing about it until there has been an inquiry. Time and again we go through a somewhat embarrassing ritual. We find it difficult to understand why sad but relatively less important matters are raised in prime time of the House when very important matters are often turned down—for example, an important development in the war in Vietnam or the situation in Ireland. I have made the point and I leave it at that.
It would be a pity if the time on the Consolidated Fund Bill were cut down. It is often one of our more valuable exercises, and the idea that time is limited gives even more power to the Executive. There may well be a case, for the purposes of the staff, for starting the debate again at 8 a.m. after an adjournment, though I am not convinced of this. But any reduction of the total time on Consolidated Fund would be a great pity.
Finally, I should like to ask two questions. The first is about the position of Scotland, a labyrinthine subject. Perhaps the Leader of the House would like to write to some of us about it. If my right hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross), a great expert on these matters, is baffled, the rest of us need not be embarrassed about being baffled. We do not understand the relationship of Scottish business to statutory instruments. If there is no Scot on the Committee, the Scottish business—[Interruption.]
The right hon. Gentleman can deal with this in his winding up speech or perhaps he would care to give me a considered answer in writing. That is as far as I wish to take that question.
Finally, this may seem to some of my hon. Friends a somewhat self-interested point, but I am not entirely happy about the rationing of Questions. I hope that it is not entirely for selfish reasons, because as I am a frequent questioner I


am one of those who blatantly use Questions for a campaign If Questions are rationed it makes that campaign that much more difficult.
Let me put it in other terms. All of us here, whatever view we take of the merits of the subject, must have some admiration for the campaign which was conducted by the then hon. Member for Kidderminster on purchase tax. There is no doubt that rightly or wrongly the present hon. Member for Worcestershire, South (Sir G. Nabarro) altered the attitude in the House towards purchase tax and many aspects of taxation. The hon. Gentleman could not have done that had there been a rationing of Questions on a tighter scale.
I agree with the right hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton that the rationing that is proposed is so loose that one wonders if it is rationing at all. I hope that this is not too much the thin end of any particular wedge, because speaking personally—I hope that hon. Members will take this in the spirit in which it said—I could not have conceivably had any effect on the policy of the then Labour Government on Aldabra, variable geometry aircraft and various other causes had Questions been limited. My hon. Friend the Member for Barrow-in-Furness (Mr. Booth) will understand this point because he has done the same on occasions. If one is limited in the Questions one can ask it gives that much more power to the Executive.
Are we sure that this is what we want? Hon. Members opposite may one day be in opposition again. It may be that they will want to campaign on certain issues. I warn them that this is the thin end of a wedge and it may not be a wedge that they particularly like when they examine its consequences.
This may seem like bestowing advice on the Chair, which I do not need to do. Surely the purpose of Questions is scrutiny. It should be within Mr. Speaker's discretion, and we should encourage him to use it, to permit scrutiny as he thinks fit. I would often be happy not to be called for a supplementary at all if in Mr. Speaker's view an adequate answer had been given to the Question I had put. There are occasions when I would dearly like to get in a second supplementary question and, if in Mr. Speaker's

discretion it was thought to be useful, a third supplementary question on the one issue.
When I was first elected to Parliament the then Member for the Cities of London and Westminster—Sir Harry HyltonFoster—as Mr. Speaker used on occasion to allow a second and, indeed, a third supplementary question. That is when, to use a phrase that I would not have used—I believe that it was used by the right hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton—the fun begins. I would not say "when the fun begins" so much as when the scrutiny and revelations start, because it is on the second and third jab that one can get to the heart of a matter.
I am not suggesting that this course be adopted on parochial subjects. Incidentally, there are many of us who ask a lot of Questions but who hardly ever ask a constituency question because we go about our constituency business in a rather different manner. If the subject is parochial or trivial, then do not let us have second and third supplementary questions. On the other hand, if it is a subject of national importance in which the consensus of the House makes it clear to Mr. Speaker that there is rather wide general interest, surely it should be in Mr. Speaker's discretion to allow the questioner a third stab. Rather than being rationed in questions let us be frequently turned down and refused even one supplementary if the question is trivial or if the answer has been given and let us, when the occasion arises, really be able to strike and strike again.

10.25 p.m.

Mr. James Tinn: I want to refer to the remarks made by the right hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Sir Robin Turton) about Questions on Fridays. While I recognise that he is as much a provincial Member as I, I must say that he did not satisfy me about the difficulties which would arise for a provincial Member in deciding priorities and choosing whether to put a question in the House or deal with constituency commitments.
Many of us who customarily regard ourselves as being committed to this place from Monday to Thursday inclusive also regard ourselves as being pretty fully committed in our constituencies for the remainder of the week for a long time


in advance. I feel it is necessary for me to be in my constituency on Friday afternoons and even Saturday mornings. If Questions on a Friday were to be answered by the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry I should need to decide whether I wanted to be in the House on that occasion or continue with my constituency commitments. It could be a difficult decision.
It would be difficult enough if I wished to table a question but even more difficult if a provincial Member were to find that another hon. Member had tabled a Question which had direct relevance to his constituency and to which he may be able to put a supplementary. There would be an obvious conflict. The position of the constituency Member is particularly difficult in this respect and I am glad that this recommendation is not being proceeded with.

10.28 p.m.

Mr. James Prior: By leave of the House, I would like to reply to the debate, which has been extremely interesting. I am grateful that so many hon. and right hon. Members have stayed on for it. I begin with an apology. I am sorry that more notice was not given on the motions. I shall see that it does not happen again. Towards the end of my speech I will indicate that there will be time for a further discussion on various points.
The hon. Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English) said he thought that most hon. Members were agreed about the scheme in principle but did not like all the details. He suggested that perhaps we could sort out some of the details. I am perfectly prepared to bide my time and do this. That is the spirit in which I approach the debate. We have to recognise that the procedure of the House must change and has constantly changed with circumstances. When one thinks of what the hon. Member for Barrow-in-Furness (Mr. Booth) pointed out—the number of statutory instruments, whether affirmative or negative—or neutral—which have to be laid on the Table nowadays, compared with the number a few years ago; when one thinks of what my right hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Sir Robin Turton) talked about—the number of parliamentary Questions, whether Oral or

Written, which are asked now, compared with the number a few years ago, it is perfectly plain that changes in our procedures have to be made. We may not like giving up some of the old ideas. After all, the business of the House is about keeping the Executive under control. It is about giving all Members proper opportunity to state their views. This is what the House has to carry out.
In that respect I turn straight away to the problems of the merits committee. A number of right hon. and hon. Members have raised that issue. I am sorry that there was not perhaps a great degree of support for the proposal.
This is the whole problem of finding time for these debates. I agree that last Session the problems of finding time for Prayers were very great indeed. I know that we have done much better this Session so far, although probably not well enough. I have not the figures with me, but our record this Session is not very different from the record of the previous Government. For all that, the problem of finding proper time for debating Prayers is not a new problem. It is one which has been the concern of Government of both parties. In an ideal world there would be plenty of time to debate not only Prayers but many other important general subjects, but in practice there is a great deal of pressure on our time, and it was to deal with that problem that the Brooke Committee made its proposal to establish the merits committee.
If the House should decide in the long run not to accept the proposal for the merits committee we shall do all we can to debate these Prayers on the Floor of the House, but it will not be possible to debate anything like the number which we believe ought to be debated. The merits committee would ensure there would be a formula available for debating Prayers which at present just do not get debated. It would not be an ideal arrangement, but, in my judgment, it would be a better arrangement than having a sizeable number of Prayers not debated at all.
I recognise the strength of feeling in the House. If the merits committee were to be accepted it would have the power to draw the attention of the House to Prayers which, in the committee's belief, should be granted; it would give reasons for its views; and it would express its


views by means of a vote. I accept that. As I have already indicated, I am willing, if it should be the wish of the House, as I think it would be, to table draft terms of reference for the committee. It would vote accordingly. I hope that that will help the House.
Again, if the committee were to be given that power and were to vote in favour of granting a Prayer, the subsequent pressure on the Leader of the House to find time for debating that Prayer would be so substantial that I am sure time would in practice invariably be found for it.
My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. Ronald Bell) told me he would have to leave, and apologised for his absence. He said that the merits committee would have to be circumspect and careful about the decisions it reached. That is probably correct. That would mean that only from time to time would the House find itself in the position of having to deal with a Prayer which had succeeded in the committee upstairs. I should like to make it clear that the procedure which I have just outlined is one which the Government put to the Brooke Committee. I hope very much that we shall be able to go ahead with the committee.

Mr. Edward Short: What would be the legal effect of the committee's voting in favour of a Prayer? Would the Queen annul the order as a result? Or would it require to be confirmed by a vote of the House?

Mr. Prior: I should have to find that out for the right hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Short: Presumably, what the right hon. Gentleman is saying is that the Prayer would be in the usual form in committee, a Prayer to the Queen to annul the order, but if the committee, which is a committee of this House, decided to pass the Prayer, would not the Queen immediately annul the order, whatever the House decided

Mr. Prior: I shall have to check that, but I presume that is what would happen and the Government would have to lay a fresh order which would have to be debated on the Floor of the House.

Mr. English: Very tentatively, I think the answer is that if it were done that way the legislation would have to be amended, because the legislation requires the approval or disapproval of both Houses. Whatever happens, at some stage that must be done, or a Statutory Instruments Act could be passed to provide for it to be done the other way.

Mr. Prior: This shows the value of the debate and the many loose ends which need to be tidied up before proceeding to the next stage.
The right hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Central (Mr. Short) referred to the chairman of the Joint Scrutiny Committee. I accept as entirely appropriate that the chairman should always be both a Member of this House and a member of the Opposition party. I think that would be acceptable to both sides of the House. Unless we adopt a procedure of this nature I do not believe that we shall ever get a proper scrutiny of regulations. I will seek further consultations with hon. and right hon. Gentlemen who have spoken tonight and lay motions which take into consideration the points that have been raised in the hope that we shall then be able to proceed quickly.
The hon. Member for Barrow-in-Furness asked why the Statutory Instruments Committee had not been set up. The reason is that we hoped that this debate would take place earlier and that we could have a decision on this matter. If there is further delay we will set up the committee, but I would prefer, after our debate tonight and after consultations, to get the Joint Scrutiny Committee and the merits committee working as soon as possible after the House comes back.
I am intrigued by the suggestion of the hon. Member for Brixton (Mr. Lipton) for cutting down the amount of printing on the Order Paper. I am not certain whether it is within my responsibility, but I shall be happy to look at that suggestion. There may not be much difference between us. His suggestion is for hon. Members to have one Oral Question a day. My suggestion is for hon. Members to have eight Oral Questions in 10 sitting days. As that works out at a Question a day for each day on which Questions are answered, it is


almost the same thing but not quite. The reason for suggesting eight Questions in 10 days is that if an hon. Member wants to ask two Questions of two different Ministers on the same day he is able to do so.
I turn to deal with the point raised by the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) that the rationing of Questions could prevent a campaign from getting off the ground. He quoted the example of the campaign on purchase tax conducted by my hon. Friend the Member for Worcestershire, South (Sir G. Nabarro). It must be said that the situation was a good deal easier ten years ago because in those days my hon. Friend was allowed three Questions to the Chancellor of the Exchequer on any one day and might well have two Questions on the next day on which the Chancellor answered Questions. Ten years ago there was no problem in getting two or three oral Questions answered by a Minister on the same day. The problem at present is that many more hon. Members are tabling Questions.

Mr. Tinn: I think it should also be said that my hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell), though I am sure he is too modest to say so, conducted more recently a successful campaign in respect of the Aldabra Atoll.

Mr. Prior: I do not think the proposals which I am putting to the House will prevent a campaign being pursued equally effectively.
I am rather more worried about the suggestion that any rationing system would tend to make the occasion more important and might lead more hon. Members to seek to table Questions. I very much hope that that will not happen. The Order Paper is already very overcrowded. That is not the sort of situation which any rationing process would be designed to bring about.
My hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Mr. Michael Hamilton) asked whether I would consult the right hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. Michael Stewart), who is the Chairman of the Select Committee on the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration, to go

through my hon. Friend's remarks with him in order to see whether some change is required in terms of evidence received by the Select Committee—for example, in respect of evidence given by civil servants. I have sympathy with what my hon. Friend said and those of us who heard his speech must have been impressed with what he had to say. I know that the House will want me to discuss the matter openly with the right hon. Member for Fulham. I shall do so, and I shall seek to find some way of reporting back to my hon. Friend and to the House, if that is considered appropriate.
I turn to the question of the attendance of Members at meetings of Select Committees and to the Consolidation Fund Bill procedures. I have listened carefully to what has been said on both these matters. I explained at the beginning of the debate that these were points which the House must decide for itself and I said the Government had no strong views one way or the other. The motions on the Order Paper are there merely to give a lead so that discussion could take place. I believe that we should not proceed with those two matters tonight, but should take them away and consider them in the light of today's debate.
That leaves me only with the matter of asking the House to take a decision on the subject of Parliamentary Questions. My own view is that it would be appropriate to allow the motions on Parliamentary Questions to go ahead. I must make clear that this is a one-Session-only experiment. If we do not make some experiments, however wrong they turn out to be, we shall not make as much progress as we should like to make. I hope the hon. Member for Brixton will allow us to go ahead for the rest of this Session on the understanding that it is experimental for one Session only, and that if by the end of the Session we find it not working we shall put other suggestions to the House.

Mr. Lipton: Does that mean that this section of our procedure that we are discussing will come up automatically at the beginning of next Session?

Mr. Prior: I should like to consider that. We should have to have a ten


'clock debate on it when we had other procedural matters to discuss at the beginning of a new Session. That is how we should have to conduct ourselves on that occasion.
The hon. Member for West Lothian asked me about what he termed the "labyrinthine" subject of Scottish affairs. Perhaps I might write to the hon. Gentleman when I have read carefully what he said. He also mentioned matters not properly the subject of this debate about the way in which Members of Parliament are kept informed about their constituents' activities. I see the force of what he said—

Mr. Dalyell: It is not a matter of the activities of our constituents but of major Government appointments in our constituencies.

Mr. Prior: I apologise to the hon. Gentleman. I shall see to it that it is considered and that the hon. Gentleman is written to about it when I have done so.
Probably I have not covered all the points which have been raised. But these are matters in which the whole House is concerned. I want to carry the House with me on them. I hope that we shall be able to make quick progress now on the Statutory Instruments Committee. For tonight, I will not move that motion, nor that concerned with Business of the House (Consolidated Fund Bills) and that concerned with the attendance of Members at meetings of Select Committees. But I ask the House to accept Motions Nos. 6 and 7 dealing with parliamentary Questions.

10.42 p.m.

Mr. Edward Short: With the leave of the House, may I thank the Leader of the House for coming so far to meet objections to his proposals. Without, I hope, sounding pompous or patronising, I feel that the right hon. Gentleman has acted in the best traditions of the House as Leader of the whole House. I am sure

that my right hon. and hon. Friends will agree to allow the right hon. Gentleman's proposals relating to Questions to be tried out for a year.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That this House takes note of the Report of the Select Committee on Parliamentary Questions, of the Second Report of the Select Committee on Procedure relating to Consolidated Fund Bills and Ministerial Statements, of the Third Report of the Select Committee on Procedure relating to the attendance of Members at meetings of Select Committees and of the Report of the Select Committee appointed to join with a Select Committee appointed by the Lords on Delegated Legislation, in the last Session of Parliament.

PARLIAMENTARY QUESTIONS

Resolved,
That this House doth agree with the Select Committee on Parliamentary Questions appointed in the last Session of Parliament in the recommendations contained in Paragraphs 7, 8, 10, 19, 28 and 29 of their Report, in the opinions expressed in Paragraphs 24 and 25 thereof and in the conclusions expressed in Paragraph 36 thereof.—[Mr. Prior.]

Ordered,
That Standing Order No. 8 (Questions to Members) be amended in line 51, by inserting, at the end, a new paragraph as follows:
'A Member who, while not desiring an oral answer to his question, desires that the answer to it shall be printed in the Official Report not later than the day for which notice has been given, shall distinguish it with the letter W, and the Minister shall cause the answer to be so printed:
Provided that the minimum notice for such a question shall be the same as that prescribed for questions for oral answer in paragraphs (4) and (5) of this Order '.—[Mr. Prior.]

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Miss Harvie Anderson): Do I understand correctly that Motions Nos. 8, 9 and 10 will not be moved? No. 8 is Delegated Legislation; No. 9 is Attendance of Members at Meetings of Select Committees; and No. 10 is Business of the House (Consolidated Fund Bills).

Mr. Prior: That is correct.

Orders of the Day — HOUSING (AMENDMENT) BILL

Not amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.

Motion made, and Question, That the Bill be now read the Third time, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 56 (Third Reading), and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

JUDGES (MAXIMUM NUMBER)

10.51 p.m.

The Lord Advocate (Mr. Norman Wylie): I beg to move,
That the Maximum Number of Judges Order 1972, a draft of which was laid before this House on 28th November, be approved.
The order is made under Section 1 of the Administration of Justice Act 1968. It relates to Scotland and Northern Ireland. It does not apply to England and Wales. Under the Act, by virtue of Section 1(1)(c) the maximum number of judges of the Court of Session is fixed at 19, and under Section 1(1)(d) the number of puisne judges of the High Court of Northern Ireland is fixed at four.
As I am sure the House is aware, under Section 1(2) the Queen may by Order in Council alter these figures. No recommendation may be made to Her Majesty in Council to make an order under the section unless a draft has been laid before Parliament and approved by resolution of each House.
Accordingly the order deals with the number of judges in the Court of Session in Scotland and the puisne judges in the High Court of Northern Ireland. I propose first to draw the attention of the House to the position of the Scottish judiciary.
Before I deal with the Scottish position, may I with your leave, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and that of the House, pay a brief tribute to Lord Grant, the Lord Justice Clerk of Scotland, who was killed with two other people a month ago in a road accident. Lord Grant was a Member of this House between 1955 and 1962. He was Solicitor-General for Scotland and later Lord Advocate. I took

the liberty in court a few weeks ago of stating—and I think that I was entitled to do so—that his untimely death in such tragic circumstances was deeply felt by his many friends at Westminster as well as in Scotland.
I am delighted to congratulate Lord Wheatley on his appointment as Lord Justice Clerk of Scotland in room of Lord Grant. Lord Wheatley was also a Member of this House for many years and was Lord Advocate in Earl Attlee's Administration.
In 1968, when the present Statute was enacted, there were 18 judges in post in Scotland. That had been the situation since 1966. In that year it was deemed appropriate that provision be made for a nineteenth judge to be appointed. No appointment was made until 1971 when the additional appointment was taken up because of the increasing volume of civil and criminal business with which the Scottish judiciary had to contend.
Today I am inviting the House to approve the draft order so far as Scotland is concerned in the light of the continuing increase of judicial business in Scotland. While I do not wish to go into statistics in any great detail, the facts speak for themselves. They are set out in the Civil Judicial Statistics, Command Paper 5028, which was published in August of this year, setting out the statistics for 1971.
Table 1 of the statistics shows a substantial increase in the volume of civil business with which the Court of Session is concerned. It bites most effectively in the work of the outer house, the work of the Court of Session as a court of first instance. One only needs to consider the figures revealed in the table to realise what a tremendous increase there has been in the work of the Court of Session particularly as a court of first instance, and particularly in the last few years.
Leaving aside petitions, interdicts, inner house appeals and the more specialist work of the court, in 1971 about 700 additional civil cases were begun and by the end of this year a further 1,000 cases will have been started—that is to say, about a 10 per cent. increase in 1971 and a further 12 per cent. in 1972.
So much for the civil side. The criminal statistics of course tell a similar story.


I think it is more accurate to look at the number of judge days spent on the criminal side. Again, over the last two years there has been a very substantial increase. In 1970…71 the figure of judge days spent on criminal work was very close on 400; the total for 1972, according to the calculations I have had made, is likely to be almost 100 in excess of that, or about 480 judge days, in itself an increase of nearly 25 per cent.
In addition, in the current session the court is burdened with the work of the Valuation Appeal Court. Every five years under legislation heritable property is revalued in Scotland and there is a right of appeal ultimately to the Land Valuation Appeal Court, and until that work is cleared, which one hopes will be done by about Easter 1973, a very material additional burden is imposed on the court.
I do not wish to elaborate this matter unduly but I assure the House, from my personal knowledge and the discussions I have had with the Lord President of the Court of Session, that I have no hesitation in saying that the Court of Session needs another judge now in order to cope with the work with which it is faced. I commend that part of the order to the House.
In the case of Northern Ireland, as we are all aware the tragic situation in the Province has undoubtedly given rise to increasing pressures, particularly on the criminal side. Even apart from that, however, there has been a substantial increase in the volume of civil work in the court in Northern Ireland and the pressure of criminal work, which is absorbing the full-time attention of two of the four puisne judges, inevitably reacts on the way in which the civil business is transacted. The Northern Ireland court had two additional puisne judges appointed in 1968, and that undoubtedly had an effect in reducing the number of cases which were pending but which had not been disposed of. For a short time the statistics were optimistic but with the increasing volume of criminal work in Northern Ireland the number of civil cases which are pending and which have not been disposed of has been growing year by year.
Likewise cases for trial at assizes by puisne judges in the Province have increased in number from 332 in 1968 to

over 410 last year, and indeed my latest information is that at the beginning of this month the figure had reached a total of 645.
There are clearly special circumstances affecting the situation in Northern Ireland. It is clear, in my respectful submission, that the High Court in Northern Ireland equally needs an additional judge now. For that reason I also commend that part of the order. Indeed, I commend the order as a whole to the House.

11.01 p.m.

Mr. S. C. Silkin: I am grateful to the Lord Advocate for the very clear and cogent way in which he has put the case for the order. I shall not attempt to deal with what is to me the somewhat strange language which arises in relation to the Scottish part of it. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Ronald King Murray) is much more competent than I to do so.
Perhaps I might be permitted to follow the right hon. and learned Gentleman in offering my congratulations to Lord Wheatley on his new appointment. I had the great good fortune, although I was not a Member of this House when he was a Member, to work very closely with him when he was a member of the unhappily abortive Royal Commission on the Penal System. His incisive mind and clear down-to-earth temperament were of tremendous value to that inquiry and made a very deep impression. I am certain that he will carry out his new responsibilities admirably.
As regards Northern Ireland, the case made by the right hon. and learned Gentleman in this House and by the Lord Chancellor in the other place is one which cannot be gainsaid. Indeed, looking at the statistics, both those put to us by the right hon. and learned Gentleman and those given in the speech of the Lord Chancellor, one wonders whether an increase of one in the number of judges is likely to be adequate and whether it might not have been better to cater for a larger number, though not necessarily making the full appointment at this stage.
I support the order as far as it goes. I do so particularly because one of the important factors which arises as a result of the increase in the number of cases awaiting trial is that inevitably one gets


to a position where people are kept in custody for longer periods before their cases can be heard and thus there are more people in custody awaiting trial. As we have learned and said on previous occasions, many of those who are kept in custody eventually are acquitted or, if not acquitted, are not punished by custodial sentences.
Although the order does not apply to this country, one knows from the example particularly of London the very serious effect of having an inadequate number of judges to deal in particular with the criminal jurisdiction. I hope that my remarks about the increase which is being made—I have suggested that it might well be even higher—in the number of judges in Northern Ireland will be read in that context. The number of civil cases awaiting trial is important, but we take the view that the most important matter of all is the number of people in custody and the time which they spend in custody.
To what extent is judicial time in both Northern Ireland and Scotland being given to functions which are not specifically judicial? I noted what the right hon. and learned Gentleman said about the quinquennial valuation in Scotland. We order things somewhat differently in England and Wales and judicial time is not normally taken up on those matters save on points of law, and that only rarely. But I noted in the Lord Chancellor's speech the reference to Royal Commissions and other commissions and boards of inquiry which occupy the time of judges in Scotland and Northern Ireland, as they do in this country.
In asking this question I am by no means suggesting that it is wrong that judges should be so employed. Often they are the most appropriate people to be so employed. There have, however, been occasions when one might have thought that taking a particular judge away from his judicial duties to chair a certain tribunal was not necessary and that others might have performed the same task with equal facility and, perhaps, greater knowledge of the subject matter. I do not suggest that that happens often but I hope that the general rule will be, in Scotland, Northern Ireland and England and Wales, that the use of judicial time for these extra-judicial duties will be kept to the essential

minimum, because if a judge is taken away from the trying of cases to deal with other matters one inevitably works up the sort of arrears of legal business, including criminal business, to which the right hon. and learned Gentleman referred.
I have one other question regarding Northern Ireland. I note from the Lord Chancellor's speech that, as one might expect, after additional judges were appointed in 1968 more cases were tried but that during this last year the number has fallen back. Is there any reason for that and, if so, will the Lord Advocate explain it? As the Lord Chancellor said,
In the last year there has been a virtual explosion in the number of prisoners awaiting trial in custody".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 14th December 1972; Vol. 337. c. 764.]
It is highly undesirable, particularly in Northern Ireland, that on the one hand there should be detention for political reasons and on the other hand a large number of people awaiting trial but kept in custody through either a shortage of judges or, as appears to have been the case in the past year, a slowing down in the rate of the trying of cases.
Subject to those points and any points which my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Leith may wish to make on the Scottish aspect, we on this side of the House will not oppose the order.

11.11 p.m.

Mr. Ian MacArthur: The House will be grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Advocate and to the hen. and learned Member for Dulwich (Mr. S. C. Silkin) for the support they have given to the order. I cannot speak about the effect of the order on the justiciary in Northern Ireland, but I agree completely with the point made by my right hon. and learned Friend that there has been a continuing and, indeed, a worrying increase in the burden of business on the justiciary in Scotland.
All of us would want to joint with my right hon. and learned Friend in congratulating Lord Wheatley on his appointment. I say that with particular feeling, because I recall very well that the noble Lord moved some very helpful amendments in another place to the Interest


on Damages (Scotland) Bill which I introduced in this House. I remember the helpful and responsible view which he took of the whole matter.
Hon. Members on both sides of the House would wish to join my right hon. and learned Friend in the tribute he paid to the late Lord Grant. We in the House of Commons remember him as a generous, considerate and true friend. While his tragic and untimely death was seen in Scotland as a great loss to the Scottish judiciary, I think that we here saw it as much more than that. It was the loss of a very close friend. We mourn him deeply and extend our deepest sympathy to his family.
There has been a great increase in the burden on the Scottish justiciary, and I cannot say whether it is right to increase the number of judges by one or two or more. However, if my right hon. and learned Friend suggests that an increase of one is right, that is sufficient for me. I am satisfied that we need to increase the number, and I am content to be guided by him as to the right number.
It is important that the course of law —and I speak as a layman—should be seen to be exercised as speedily as possible within the general understanding of natural justice. If this order will achieve that I support it totally, as I believe it will be supported by every well-balanced person in Scotland.

11.15 p.m.

Mr. Ronald King Murray: I should like to associate myself with the tributes which have been paid to the late Lord Grant. There is no doubt that his judicial stature will not be dimmed by the passage of time. I should also like to associate myself with the congratulations which have been paid to the appointment of Lord Wheatley as Lord Justice Clerk.
Nobody would doubt that the statistics which the Lord Advocate has given to the House certainly justify the increase in the establishment of Scottish judges by one. Indeed, I share the doubts expressed by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dulwich (Mr. S. C. Silkin) that it is a modest increase which might have been greater on the statistics alone.
I think we have to look not only at the Scottish but at the Northern Ireland position. Certainly it should not go unrecorded that the establishment of the Court of Session in Scotland in 1532 was 15 judges. Now it has increased to a modest 20. I do not think anybody would seriously argue that an increase of 25 per cent. in the establishment over more than four centuries is excessive.
I should like to put a question to the Lord Advocate on both the Scottish and the Northern Ireland increases. We know that the judges have an increasing volume of civil and criminal business to get through. Of course, the weight of public opinion tends to fall on the side of the criminal business. It is there that the law's delays are most conspicuous and achieve the greatest degree of publicity. But it is important to know to what extent the judicial infrastructure requires to be augmented. It is not much good increasing the complement of judges by the modest figure provided for in the order unless we have the ancillary staff to go with the additional judge. I hope that the Lord Advocate can satisfy us that in both Scotland and Northern Ireland there are sufficient trained ancillary staff in the judicial infrastructure to go with the appointment of additional judges.
I welcome the order as giving a modest increase which is at least justified by the statistics alone. However, it is also right to direct our attention for a moment to the extra-mural, extra-judicial, activities of judges. It would be a sad day for the Government and administration of this country generally if it were felt that Royal Commissions and other non-partisan public inquiries were not to have the services of Her Majesty's judges from time to time. There are some instances when it is appropriate to have a partisan inquiry in which it would not be correct to have one of Her Majesty's judges in attendance or as a member of a committee or commission, but there are many other spheres in which Her Majesty's judges have played a very important role in bringing about changes in the law and administration of the country. Indeed, one need only instance the Local Government (Scotland) Bill at present going through this House and recall that the Commission was chaired by Lord Wheatley, who is now the Lord Justice


Clerk. Therefore, it would be a sad day for the administration of this country if the independence of the judiciary were not recognised in this important social function.

11.14 p.m.

The Lord Advocate: By leave of the House I should like to thank hon. Members on both sides for the welcome they have given to the order.
The hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Ronald King Murray) referred to the extra-mural activities of Her Majesty's judges. I entirely share the views which he expressed on the valuable part that the judiciary can and does play in public life by chairing commissions and committees of inquiry of all kinds.
One of the problems is that with a small bench any encroachment that is made upon it for this type of public service has a much greater impact on its work than is the case in England and Wales where one has a larger bench. The hon. and learned Gentleman asked to what extent this public service takes place today. There are at present four committees presided over by members of the Scottish bench—that is 20 per cent. of the whole bench.
I should add that the Emslie Committee which recently reported and made certain recommendations with regard to penalties provided for murder recommended that there should be a High Court judge as a member of the parole board in Scotland, and Lord Wheatley, who has just been appointed Lord Justice Clerk, was a few weeks ago appointed a member of the board. One of the problems facing a relatively small judiciary is that if we are to use these highly qualified people for these important public functions there will necessarily be a greater impact on the work of the bench than in a larger jurisdiction.
The hon. and learned Member for Dulwich (Mr. S. C. Silkin) raised the question whether one extra judge for Northern Ireland was enough. All I can tell the House is that that was the request from the Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland. In his view that is sufficient for the moment at least. If the situation requires further additions it will be possible for my right hon. and learned Friend

the Attorney-General and my noble Friend the Lord Chancellor in another place to come forward with another order.
I am grateful for the tributes that have been paid to Lord Grant, for the congratulations that have been given to Lord Wheatley on his recent appointment and also for the general welcome that the order has received.

Mr. Ronald King Murray: Before the Lord Advocate concludes, I wonder whether he would deal with the question of the judicial infrastructure.

The Lord Advocate: As the hon. and learned Gentleman knows, particularly in the criminal jurisdiction, it is not merely a question of providing more judges. The Crown Office for which I am responsible in Scotland likewise has to be strengthened, and this is in the process of being done.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That the Maximum Number of Judges Order 1972, a draft of which was laid before this House on 28th November, be approved.

EUROPEAN COMMUNITY SECONDARY LEGISLATION

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a Select Committee be appointed to consider procedures for scrutiny of proposals for European Community Secondary Legislation and to make recommendations.—[Mr. Murton.]

11.23 p.m.

Mr. Richard Body: There are a number of matters which ought to be raised on this important issue. I submit that there are a number of unsatisfactory features in the way that the motion has been presented.
As you may know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, there has been a report—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Miss Harvie Anderson): Order. Is the hon. Member seeking to oppose the motion?

Mr. Body: I feel bound to oppose it.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I take it from what the hon. Member is saying that he is opposing the motion.

Mr. Body: Yes.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: In that case I must take his objection.

It being after Ten o'clock, and objection being taken to further Proceeding, the debate stood adjourned.

Debate to be resumed tomorrow.

ADJOURNMENT

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.— [Mr. Murton.]

DORMAN LONG (PENSIONERS)

11.24 p.m.

Mr. John Sutcliffe: I am grateful for this opportunity to bring the plight of Dorman Long pensioners to the attention of the House. Inflation continues at a high level. It is important that we should be satisfied that the British Steel Corporation is making sufficient provision to protect the standard of living of its pensioners. This is of concern not only to present and past steel employees but to the public generally who, as taxpayers, provide the money for and, through the Government, are sole shareholders in the corporation.
More particularly, the public will want to be assured that the corporation is administering the Dorman Long pension fund exclusively in the best interests of the Dorman Long pensioners. Members of the Dorman Long scheme who retired on or before nationalisation are in particularly difficult circumstances. Their pensions are small, a reflection of the comparatively low earnings they received during their working lives. They benefit far less from percentage increases than do pensioners with current higher pensionable incomes. Dorman Long pensioners are losing on all sides. They are not just a small group of retired executives. The Dorman Long pension scheme covered administrative, clerical and technical staff. It also covered foremen and weekly-paid employees. In April 1968, the last date for which the figures are available, there were 3,489 members still contributing, and 626 drawing pensions averaging £310 a year.
Dorman Long was one of the private companies taken over by the BSC. It was one of the few to have a self-invested rather than an insured pension fund. The fund is therefore capable of

earning a profit to supplement pensions, and its trust deed provides for periodic actuarial valuation at intervals of not more than five years and for distribution of whatever surpluses may exist. The latest valuation revealed a £1 million surplus. This made possible a 2½ per cent. per annum increment to pensions.
It should be made clear at the start that that award, effective as of 1st July 1970, was made simply in accordance with the rules for distributing the profits of the self-invested fund. No doubt it was marginally useful in offsetting inflation, but the award was not made for that purpose. It being quickly eroded at the then current rate of inflation, approaching 10 per cent., the question arose as to the date of the next valuation. Five years seemed too long an interval, and the corporation was asked whether reviews could be more frequent, especially as it was pointed out that other companies, public and private, had injected money into pension schemes to meet the erosion they had suffered from inflation.
In the light of this I suggested to Dr. Finniston, the corporation's deputy chairman, in a letter dated 9th October 1971, that:
The corporation will be defaulting on its obligations to all its former employees and those of its constituent companies unless a serious attempt is made to pay to pensioners the sums they were originally intended to receive, that is, amounts equivalent in purchasing power to their original pensions. The arguments for so doing are particularly strong in the case of the Dorman Long group, which took action in both 1947 and 1957 to counteract the impact of inflation on pensions, even though the rise in prices during those two periods was in no way comparable with that recently experienced.
The corporation's reaction was extraordinary. It announced a general 3 per cent. increase in pensions and denied all but half of 1 per cent. of it to members of the Dorman Long scheme. The 2½ per cent increase previously awarded to Dorman Long pensioners was to be deducted from the 3 per cent. that they would otherwise have received from the corporation.
I wrote to Lord Melchett on 6th December 1971 saying that it seemed particularly unjust that the successful management of this pension fund should be regarded as a reason for reducing BSC's contribution. I went on to suggest that the chairman should consider


granting the full increase irrespective of increases awarded after retirement by the trustees of former pension schemes or by former companies.
To that letter Lord Melchett replied as follows on 17th December:
As the corporation is now a single business it should not differentiate between employees notwithstanding the differing practice in the past of the various companies and funds.
As a reason for the corporation chairman's decision this is absurdly unsatisfactory. It supported not his argument but mine. The way not to differentiate between employees is for the corporation's contribution to be the same for all, not 3 per cent. for some and a derisory ½per cent. for others.
I need not dwell on the sense of injustice or the bitterness felt by Darman Long pensioners, but it can be gauged from the terms of the letter they received on 13th July 1970 which announced their 2½ per cent. increment. The letter explicitly stated:
It should be emphasised that the above increases do not arise from a review by the BSC of the adequacy of existing pensions. They are in fact as explained above a distribution of surplus arising from the fund's continuing to invest members' and employer's contributions over past years.
Despite this letter and despite the 7 per cent. salary increase backdated to 1st January 1972 which the corporation staff have received, Lord Melchett has refused to restore equity by granting Dorman Long pensioners the full 3 per cent., the 3 per cent. they had confidently expected.
One is forced to contrast this situation with the pressure behind the disappointed pensioners who expected the Christmas bonus and who now, on account of that expectation and political pressure, are not to be deprived of it after all. The treatment of Dorman Long pensioners is quite indefensible. Considered in the light of the way similar pension schemes are handled by other nationalised industries, it is scandalous. British Railways, the National Coal Board and the Electricity and Gas Councils all review their staff pensions annually and they grant increases in line with the Pensions (Increase) Act. These increases are substantial, 18 per cent. in 1971 alone. They are granted to all pensioners under the jurisdiction of those bodies, not just to members of the nationalised industries' own scheme

but to members of the private schemes inherited on nationalisation. So it may be said that in its present pensions policy the British Steel Corporation is totally out of step with other nationalised industries.
Thanks to the built-in annual reviews, an employee of the Electricity Council, for example, who retired in 1948 with a pension of £100 a year would now be getting £282.58, almost three times the original amount. The pension of a Dorman Long fund pensioner who retired in 1948 has less than doubled and that of a Dorman Long pensioner who retired in 1957 has increased by less than half in 14 years. That is the discrepancy.
The history of the Dorman Long fund prior to nationalisation makes it even more glaring, because the private company acted to increase pensions. For example, in 1948 the existing insured scheme was replaced by a self-invested one able at that time to offset inflation through its earnings. In 1957 the per annum pension rate for each year's pensionable service was increased from one-one hundred and twentieth to one-seventieth of pensionable salary, which in turn was increased by £30. Had nationalisation not intervened and put off the 1968 review, which did not take place until 1970, there can be no doubt whatever that this private company which acted in 1948 and 1957 would have acted again 10 years later to pump money into its pension fund in order to maintain and restore the original value of its pensions, as ICI and other private companies have regularly done over the years.
The bleak fact is that Dorman Long pensioners have received all told a 3 per cent. increment since 1957, made up of the 2½ per cent. distribution in 1970, in no way connected with the adequacy of pensions, and the niggardly ½ per cent. in 1971, being the corporation's contribution to offset the effects of 14 years of inflation. Yet between 1958 and 1963 the Dorman Long pension fund increased by £2,270,000 and amounted to £5,148,068 by April 1968, when the interest reserve fund contained £633,606. Since then the position is unclear.
I can get no specific information about how the fund has fared in the last four and a half years. I only know that the 1970 quinquennial valuation, a valuation due in 1968, revealed a surplus of over.


£1 million, making possible the 2½ per cent, increment. I do not know exactly how big that surplus was or just how it was distributed. This is important because according to clause 8 in the Dorman Long trust deed there are five separate uses to which profit can be put. While the increasing of benefits is fifth on the list it is a use to which reserve fund surpluses can also be put, according to a further provision of the deed.
I am therefore surprised that the increments received by pensioners from the fund have been so small. There is concern about the administration of the fund, which is justified because specific information is apparently not available. We know neither the current amount in Dorman Long or BSC pension funds nor the average age of the pensioners. Nor do we know whether the corporation's recent 3 per cent. award was paid out of the corporation's own pension fund surplus or out of corporation moneys generally. The source of the ½ per cent. is also unclear. The amount of the½per cent. is insignificant. What is significant about it is the fact that this insultingly small ½ per cent. represents an acknowledgement of the corporation's responsibility to increase Dorman Long pensions. Unfortunately that responsibility or moral obligation inherited from the private company to do all in its power to maintain the real value of the pension the corporation has conspicuously failed to carry out.
This is not just a matter of justice for those who have contributed to a private company fund that the private company can no longer protect and supplement. The issue is the equitable use of both private and public funds for the protection of pensioners. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State cannot just stand aside. Dorman Long pensioners have watched, and go on watching, their standard of living being remorselessly eroded. The only guarantee they and the general body of pensioners have is that their funds will be valued at least once every five years. They have no assurance that they will get any increase at all, far less that increases will follow the cost of living or give them the purchasing power they were originally intended to have.
Contrast this with the Government's promise to review old-age pensions every year and their determination at the very

least to maintain their purchasing power; compare this with the annual reviews by other nationalised industries and their pension increases linked to the cost of living. I ask the House, where is the ability of these pensioners—victims of multiplying injustices—to appeal from the corporation's arbitrary decisions, except through Parliament and to the Minister? I hope that my right hon. Friend will agree to look into this matter and that, having done so, he will make representations to and use his influence with the corporation to achieve at least these minimum objectives: that the corporation should provide information, so far unavailable, about the administration of its own and the Dorman Long pension scheme, that it guarantees an annual review and gives some assurance of realistic increments linked to the cost of living.
I would like to believe that Lord Melchett will be persuaded, as he has not so far been persuaded by any of my protestations over the past year or more, that Dorman Long pensioners merit equal treatment with that of other corporation pensioners, which means awarding them the full 3 per cent. arising from the one and only review by the corporation to date of the adequacy of its existing pensions.

11.41 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. Peter Emery): Obviously, I welcome the opportunity of responding to the questions which have been raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough, West (Mr. Sutcliffe) in propounding a strong argument for certain of his constituents, although I must say that he does not do his case any good by some of the flowery language he used, suggesting that the plight of Dorman Long pensioners is that much worse than or different from that of many other pensioners within the British Steel Corporation. The idea of "multiplying injustices", which I think was the term my hon. Friend used, is not really in correspondence with the facts of the case. Let me, therefore, bring the attention of the House to what I see these facts to be.
Basically, when the steel industry was nationalised the corporation inherited some 110 pension schemes of various ages and various sizes. The corporation established its own staff superannuation


scheme in 1969 and has since then assimilated all those company staff pension schemes. A similar scheme for manual workers is about to be launched. Therefore, the Dorman Long pension scheme is in exactly the same sort of state as that of those other pension schemes within the steel industry.
Many of us get fairly worked up by and boggle at the complexity of pension schemes when they are simple and affect only ourselves. The corporation had to gather together and study in detail all those 110 schemes and work out for each individual member how much credit in respect of his past service he would be entitled to under the corporation's new scheme, if he wished to become fully subject to the corporation's scheme. If he did not, he could elect to continue to be subject to the terms and conditions of his former scheme as far as they related to contributions and benefits. The Dorman Long employees had that opportunity and it was up to them how they opted.
It is important to realise what are the statutory responsibilities, because I can answer for them rather than for the management of the schemes, which must be the responsibility of the BSC. Paragraph 40(2) of Schedule 4 to the Iron and Steel Act 1967 states that
the regulations shall be so framed as to secure that persons having pension rights under the scheme, whether such persons as are mentioned in paragraph (a) of the preceding subsection or not, are not placed in any worse position by reason of the amendment, repeal, revocation, transfer, extinguishment or winding up".
That provision sets out to ensure that no person in the new scheme shall be worse off because of the BSC's new overall pension scheme than he would have been if he had stayed with his own pension rights under one of the 110 schemes which existed before the BSC took them over.
Most of the members favoured the terms of the BSC scheme, because less than 7 per cent of nearly 42,000 members elected to continue with their old rights of contributions and benefits. The Dorman Long fund members voted in similar proportions. Of the 3,500 members, over 3,200 elected for the corporation's scheme.
During this operation the corporation's pensions officers toured the country explaining the transfer arrangements to the members and making themselves available to answer questions. No doubt it was this long and careful groundwork that led to the fairly smooth assimilation of these many diverse schemes. In the case of the Dorman Long Fund—I take it that my hon. Friend is referring also to the Redpath Brown and Company fund and the Teesside Bridge and Engineering Company Fund, all of which were transferred with effect from 1st May 1971—the usual transfer procedure was followed. The corporation gave the Department's officials details of the schemes to be transferred and an assurance that all the members of those schemes had elected for assimilation. Regulations were drafted and circulated to the appropriate steel unions and the BSC for comment. In the absence of any objections, the Minister for Industry made the regulations, which were subject to annulment by either House.
The corporation and my Department's officials have always recognised that the existing pensioners of the former companies did not have the same opportunity as had contributing members to express their views on the transfers, but their position was not materially affected by the transfers. The source of payment has been changed from the local company pensions office to the BSC central pensions office in Glasgow.
Before the transfer of the three Dorman Long funds took place, an independent actuary valued them. With BSC agreement, the accumulated surplus was applied to securing for all the existing pensioners an increase in their pensions at the rate of 2½ per cent. That was for each year since their retirement and not, as I think my hon. Friend suggested, a once-and-for-all payment.

Mr. Sutcliffe: No, I did not suggest that.

Mr. Emery: I am sorry; I misunderstood my hon. Friend. That 2½ per cent. was for each year since retirement. Subsequently, the BSC decided to supplement all former company staff pension schemes by 3 per cent. for each year since retirement, but less any increase already given by the former scheme or company. Because the surplus from their


own scheme had already enabled an increase to be paid, the Dorman Long pensioners received only a balance of an increase of ½ per cent. a year. This means that over all the schemes there was a 3 per cent. increase.
It can be argued, and I accept the argument, that people in those schemes have benefited to a greater extent than Dorman Long employees or pensioners, because under their own schemes they would not have obtained 2½ per cent. but have now obtained a full 3 per cent., which is the same as the sum given to the Dorman Long pensioners. The BSC wanted to ensure that the least-well-oft section of pensioners within the corporation had been able to benefit to the same extent as anybody else in the scheme. All are as well off and nobody is worse off than if he had not been part of the BSC scheme.
This may seem unfair to certain Dorman Long pensioners who were members of a self-administered scheme which had accumulated a surplus. However, quite a number of pensioners have been given small increases under their own schemes and the corporation's purpose in supplementing all pensions was to provide an immediate increase in all pensions to offset increases in the cost of living which had taken place since the former company's scheme pensioners had retired. It was therefore considered appropriate—and I can understand this argument—to provide this supplement to account for any increase received since retirement.

Mr. Sutcliffe: Is not this dissipating throughout the pension funds of the corporation the particular surplus for

distribution under the Dorman Long Fund pension scheme? Is it right that it should be dissipated throughout the corporation at the arbitrary will of the BSC? Does the 3 per cent. granted to everybody in the corporation represent a review of the adequacy of the pension, or was it a distribution of surplus earnings?

Mr. Emery: My hon. Friend must get the situation right. There is no dissipation. In fact, the 2½ per cent. which could have been distributed because of the Dorman Long surplus has in fact been distributed. There are other pensioners in other schemes who have got more, not because of the balances in their own scheme but because the BSC decided, rightly or wrongly, that there should be an overall 3 per cent. Therefore, the only argument that seems to me to be justified is that Dorman Long pensioners should have received more, but if they had received more there would have been an inequity between one section of pensioners in Dorman Long and others in other parts of the steel industry.
I, as Minister, am not responsible for the management of this scheme. This must be part of the BSC management decision. It was its decision that this should go the way it did. Therefore, the Dorman Long pensioners—

The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at six minutes to Twelve o'clock.